- You can't get lucky all the time.
- Yeah, but you can be smart every day!


In the last week I watched three movies that were all sort of the same. They're the kind of movies that get C+ or B- grades. They were fine, and fun enough to watch, but not really memorable and not the kinds of movies I'd go around recommending to friends.

My favorite part about 16 Blocks is it's vision on New York City. It reminded me of one of my big observations about the city: things are just crammed in wherever they might fit because there's not much space and no master plan. I most saw this is all the scenes when Willis and Mos Def are running through alleys or the basements of buildings and by all the people just going about their day.

The thing that really bugged me about the movie is they used trickery to show how clever the characters are without actually showing them being clever. There were lots of times when we see something happen, and we think the hero's are done for, but then really they snuck out the back and sent one guy around the side when we weren't looking so they get the drop on the bad guys. The trouble is we don't see how they actually snuck around, it felt kind of like cheating to me (as in: of course I'd want to have the guy sneak around behind you so we can trap you, I just don't know how I'd have him get around you in that corridor you're walking down when we don't know where you are...)

Two for the Money started out very promising. It stayed pretty good until the main character started to lose his mojo, and at that point it just went downhill. For me it was because the whole movie was about how good this guy is at what he does (predict sports games for gamblers) and then all of a sudden he's not good at it anymore. And the movie never really tells us why. Sure, maybe he got distracted or corrupted or something, the movie hints at those. But it doesn't bring us back around at the end. I don't know, maybe it's a parable about how luck only lasts so long and if your career is built on it then you're hosed when it runs out. But the whole point of the first part of the movie is that this guy transcends luck. Whatever special skill he has goes away, and we never find out why. That was a bummer.

It sure is fun to watch Pacino overact though, and this movie gives him a fun character to work with.

To be honest, I don't really remember After the Sunset. I know there was some thieving and some spying and some people running around in the Caribbean having a good time. I remember not remarking about the silliness of the heists too many times, but once again this movie really lives up to the C standard. It was fun enough to watch, but in six months I'll be hard pressed to tell you anything about it other than there was diamond thievery and lots of shots of Salma Hayek in bikinis (some of them were pretty graphic too, it felt like watching the playboy channel.)

- Being different isn't always a bad thing.
- Trust me, this ain't one of them times.

Wow, Fantastic Four is the most "paint by numbers" movie I've seen in a long time. Stale acting, stale script, stale plot. It's like everyone involved just went through the motions to churn out another superhero movie.

It's eminently forgettable and bland. I think the only reason I stuck it out is I watched it in the afternoon when I was half asleep and recovering from a rafting weekend. I'm not even sure I saw the whole thing, I may have nodded of some in the middle, but this is the kind of movie where you don't notice when you miss some in the middle.

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