I'll Have Ma Chao for Breakfast... And Dim Sum!

New
Beerfest - *
The Departed - **1/2 '
District B-13 - **1/2 '
Flyboys - *1/2
Little Children - Zero!
Stormbreaker - ** '
Three Times - **1/2 '

Older
All the King's Men - *1/2
Azumi - **1/2
Fearless - **1/2 '
Zoom - Zero!
Clerks II - ** '
Half Nelson - ** '
You, Me and Dupree - 1/2

Recently Viewed
Aquamarine - ***1/2 ' (84)
Batman Begins - *** ' (72)
Broken Lizard's Club Dread - ** (39) (We like our scary movie spoofs when they're, well, called Scary Movie - oh, and when they actually have skill. I will, however, give props to the deliberate refusal to parody Psycho - i.e. thanks for nothing Van Sant! - though everything else was admittedly pretty tame. The real question is, does M. Night Shyamalan's work require spoofing or does he already do that himself?)
The Conversation - **1/2 ' (59)
The Core - ** ' (43) (404 Access Denied ... What ... ?)
Danny Phantom - *** ' (72)
Desperate Housewives - *1/2 (32)
Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo - * (19) (The scary part is this guy went on to direct Sky High... Now are we convinced it's the year's best screenplay? etc)
Donnie Darko - **1/2 ' (58) (Future events such as these will affect you in the future!!! Fingerprint the axe people, I mean jesus)
Ed Wood - *** (66) (Pull the strings!)
The Emperor's New Groove - *** ' (73) (olol confusing subtext - same-sex social issues nay, yay - ah screw it, both! 75% Fairly OddParents-ish, which consequently is one of the highest compliments I can pay. I'll put that box inside another box! etc)
The Fairly OddParents - ***1/2 ' (88) (Again etc)
Fargo - ** ' (45)
First Strike - ** ' (46)
The French Connection - **1/2 ' (56)
Ghost in the Shell - ***1/2 (76)
Ju-On: The Grudge - *1/2 (30) (Remember when FEMALE #2 found that ghost under her covers etc...)
Monster House - *** ' (70)
Pale Rider - ** ' (45)
Repo Man - ** (37) (Man I wish some alien car would whisk me away from the real world because other people are jerks. It DOES. The END)
The Royal Tenenbaums - *** (61)
Rumble in the Bronx - **1/2 ' (59)
Rush Hour - ** ' (46)
Rush Hour 2 - ** ' (47) (Needs about fifty more at this rate, though the world would probably run out of money to pay Tucker by around, oh, say 7?)
The Transporter - *** (61) (Don't know why nobody really digs these - maybe the likes of Stealth, The Island, and other blockbuster heavyweights has sullied the reputation of anything action-oriented whatsoever, but I prefer my action flicks to have creative combat, fair fights, and no aureate bullshit that the film isn't prepared to execute properly - and The Transporter delivers. Nifty, if somewhat unspectacular; heart-seekers' aims are equally represented with the notion of setting aside one's "rules" and thinking of somebody else for a change, while everyone else should be able to just dispense with the nitpicky pretense - it's not exactly the greatest film in the world but goddammit you better be entertained. I guess you're supposed to see the first before the second, huh...)
True Romance - ** ' (44)
12 Angry Men - *** ' (73)
Unforgiven - ***1/2 (79)
Waiting for Guffman - **1/2 (51) (Problem with making a mocumentary about the admiration of mediocrity is you still gotta sit through all the mediocrity)
What Dreams May Come - *1/2 (26) (Starts with colorless drama and annoying Descartes-isms, ultimately gives way to border-line offensive ideas on love that involve being sincere and trying really hard - oh, and also sappy monologuing. Self-important and inconclusive - watch that slo-mo gooooo... Funny how shipwrecks demarcate the gateway to Hell - olol Titanic? - though defiantly irritating in how half-ass all the death details are. "Concentrate harder," "when you do, you will" etc. Thoroughly pointless that Williams's kids appear to him as other people, though unintentionally hilarious that they're of different ethnicities - zomg racial equality! - as is the sword 'n' rifle-toting band of medieval henchmen who guard the portcullis to the whatchamahooey in Hell. Plenty of overblown exchanges, yet almost no explanation on the whole dying ordeal, just a lot of arbitrary warnings of one reality becoming another or getting sucked into a portal to fool audiences into assuming there's some sort of "risk" involved in Robin Williams's little tuck-and-roll sortie into Hell to pick up his hubby. The much-touted visuals are of course solid, but misguided; after all, it doesn't exactly take much imagination to depict Heaven as a sprawling rainbow utopia, and when you put it all in perspective it's essentially two hours of nothing, concluding with the hero being given everything he could have asked for. Legitimate subplots I guess, though they're bland as hell - "I'm not you Dad!" - and props to whoever came up with the idea to make Heaven's instant transport system involve closing your eyes, setting the stage for the obligatory cut scene transition. Nice cinematographical move, friend. And yet it's still better than World Trade Center...)