Movie Roundup

The past week I've watched at lot of things - a performance of Shakespeare's Twelfth Night (at the Fremont Troll), highlights from the Live 8 concerts, Fourth of July fireworks, and lots of movies. I've been disappointed with a lot of movies that I've seen in the past month or so (e.g. Spiderman 2, The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou), but everything I watched the past week was good.

Man on Fire stars Denzel Washington as Creasy, a bodyguard in Mexico. I like Denzel Washington; he's a good actor and this movie is no exception. The start of the story is about the evolution of Creasy's character and his relationship with the young girl that he's guarding. While the later part of the movie is the "action" part. Overall I liked the movie, but at nearly two and half hours it couldn't quite keep my attention. So it only gets 3 out of 5 stars.

Somehow I've avoid watching all the Batman movies. Perhaps it's because they have a bad reputation, but I've heard good things about Batman Begins. So I went to see it on Sunday. I'm not quite sure how to describe it while keeping it brief and not giving anything away. So I'll just say go see it because it is good - 4 stars out of 5.

I saw Revenge of the Sith right after it came out. But I love Star Wars, so I went to see it again before it left the theatres. The second time around it was just as good - 5 of 5 stars.

On Wednesday, I went to see an advance screening of the Fantastic Four. (Despite my earlier praise of Batman Begins), I tend not to enjoy superhero movies too much. However, Fantastic Four is entertaining and funny. Perhaps it is a little short and doesn't have a lot of action sequences, but after three long movies, short and sweet is a good thing. So I'll give it 4 stars out of 5.

National Treasure is the most recent Nicholas Cage movie. I think that he is a little like John Travolta in that both of them overact. I can't recall a single John Travolta performance that I liked, but for some reason I seem to enjoy all the Nicholas Cage movies that I see. In National Treasure, Cage plays an adventurer who is looking for a treasure hidden by the Founding Fathers (of the US). I found the movie to be a bit hokey and predictable. (The story probably isn't that original either, e.g. Lara Croft, Indiana Jones, etc.). However, I enjoyed it. So I'll overlook my complaints and give it 4 stars out of 5 also.

London

A Long Anticipated Weekend

It's been a long and tiring week. I'm glad that I have a long weekend to rest.

Last weekend I went camping at the Olympic National Park with Nabeel and Suor. On Saturday (after some creative exercises involving getting keys to get other keys to recover keys that were lock into someone's apartment), we took the ferry across Puget Sound to Bainbridge Island then drove to Port Angeles on the Olympic Pennisula. (There is a bridge between Bainbridge Island and the Olympic Pennisula). We hiked up Hurricane Ridge then camped at the Heart O' The Hills campground. The weather was okay, but a little cloudy. There were lots of deer at the top of Hurricane Ridge.

The next day, we went to Second Beach (after a short hike) on the Pacific Ocean. It's a pretty good spot for photos, but it was raining fairly heavily the whole time we were there. (Kind of like last time!). I haven't sorted through all my photos yet, but I'll try to post some later this weekend.

On Tuesday I went to a Lifehouse concert at El Corazón with Suor. The setting was very "intimate". (i.e. Small, crowded, hot, and sweaty). I only recognized a small subset of the songs. (I have their album No Name Face, but have not heard either of their other two albums...well that's a small lie, I've listened to their new album once). Overall the concert was good though. (The opening act was decent (for an opening act) too...but we never figured out who they were).

Since my last post about 30 Days was popular, I guess I'll comment about this week's show too. :-) A (Christian) guy from West Virgina goes to Dearborn, Michigan to spend a month living with Muslim family and observing all of their customs, including, wearing a traditional outfit when he left the airport in West Virgina that made him popular with the airport security. (One third of Dearborn's population is Muslim). It was an interesting story, probably the most interesting of the three episodes that they've shown so far. He struggled with his stereotypes (but was open-minded) and (understandably) had a lot of trouble trying to reconcile the Muslim lifestyle with his Christian beliefs (in particular going to a mosque to pray). Next week's episode sounds very similar in it's approach - a straight guy goes to San Francisco to become a roommate with an openly gay man.