Murderball, Sky High, Fantastic Four, and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

Sunday, the 5th-First of all, I just want to say that I've had a lovely anniversary weekend. I'm thinking of extending it to the rest of the month. (It's a short month after all.) Today, we had my favorite, Vietnamese food, and then got a bunch of DVDs from Blockbuster. I really wanted to see THE ARISTOCRATS but there is no way that's going to be available at a Blockbuster. So we got MURDERBALL, which was fabulous. It's a documentary about a bunch of guys who play quad rugby, or as they like to call it, "murderball". All of the players have some sort of impairment of all four limbs and it's basically "get the guy who has the ball" and don't let him roll over the goal line. Pretty simple, but what happens is that you get rammed from your opponents and lots of times you fall on the floor. It's a story about the game and the guys who play it. And the guys who play it are inspiring. You really do start to think, hey, look at them, they had a horrible thing happen to them, but look what they've done since. The extras on the DVD are fun too, such as the time three of the guys from the movie hang out with the crowd from JACKASS. Now, that was hilarious. The next movie we saw was, SKY HIGH. Yes, I know it was a Disney movie, but it was written by the same guys who write for KIM POSSIBLE, which is the best show on the Disney Channel. Kurt Russell was pretty funny as The Commander, the dad who thinks it's the worst thing in the world that his son has no superpowers, but tries not to show it. And the effects were great, lots of practical effects, which means no CGI and, yes, the tables were thrown across the room and the guy really did get thrown in to the column. Stuff like that. The little teenage love triangle was ok, but the whole division of the school into "superheros", i.e., the "cool" kids, and "sidekicks", i.e., the "not-cool" kids, or as they like to say, "hero support" was a good idea. Plus, they had Dave Foley and Kevin MacDonald in the movie as well. Can't go wrong with that. I'm hoping this gets turned into a TV series. Are you listening, Disney? The kids were fantastic here. Give them a show. Oh, and Kurt Russell too maybe. Moving on. The FANTASTIC FOUR was the usual CGI fest, but it did have some good humor bits. For those who watch it, the best part is the the part with the shaving cream. Really. The fire effects for the Human Torch was very well done and I heard that the race with the missle took 4 months to create---for what amounts to about 3 minutes of film. This is why movies cost so much. Well, that and the fact that actors and producers get 10 million for doing a movie. It's definitely not the make-up dude that get's the huge paycheck. It's not nearly as good as SPIDERMAN so don't expect too much, but it's got a few good moments. And even though Jessica Alba is waaaaay too young to be Sue Storm, she does an okay job here. The best actors, I think are Julian MacMahon and Michael Chiklis, playing Victor Von Doom and The Thing, or Ben Grimm, respectively. Michael Chiklis, in particular does a fantastic job under an entire Thing suit. Next, we saw the latest version of CHARLIE AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY. Now, I'm a big fan of the 1971 version with Gene Wilder. This version is definitely not as good as that one so I recommend that everyone see the 1971 version. Now, Johnny Depp is, as usual, completely original and daring in his portrayal and since this is a Tim Burton movie, the art direction on this is fanciful with a little bit of menace. The oompa loompas are all played by one man, who, by the way, deserved every bit of money he got. Oh, and the compositors earned their keep too. But they gave Willy Wonka a really odd backstory, which wasn't the least bit necessary and sucked the mystery out of the character. As a result, this movie is a lot flatter and less interesting than the diabolical 1971 version. Thems are my reviews! We got a coupon for Blockbuster so maybe there'll be more reviews later.