WALL-E

PIXAR seems to be able to do not wrong with the release of their latest film staring a lovable, trash-compacting robot who is left alone to clean up the trash of an abandoned Earth. Outside of being a simple love story, the film really hits a home run by it depiction of how the human race has degenerated in a world where everything is done for them - even walking. As always the computer animation is second-to-none and astonishing. If available to you, definately see this film in a theater with digital projection. Great work PIXAR and keep the stories coming!

Click here to check out the official website.

Wanted

Wanted, the comic mini-series by Mark Millar and J.G. Jones, makes it to the big screen from director Timur Bekmambetov who brought us the Russian action, dark-fantasy film Nochnoy Dozor, or titled Nightwatch for American audiences. I picked up the graphic novel that collected this mini-series to see how the movie would be departing for the original source material. In the comic, the league of assasians was formed by the super-villians to rid the multi-verse of its super-heroes where as in the film they are an ages old guild that commits a single murder to save hundreds more. Either way the movie works well and is a high-octane, R-rated, violent, fun-fest with Angelina Jolie thrown in to sweeten the pot. Leave the kids home and get to your local theater now to check this out.

Click here to check out the official website.

The Imaginary Invalid @ Landsburgh Theatre

René Auberjonois stars in this play by Molière dealing with a wealthy hypochondriac who tries to marry of his daughter to a doctor so he can have his own personal physician in the family. The play is a wonderful farce with hilarious charcters, great choreography, and engaging performances. It seems The Shakespeare Theatre Company is a wonderful placed to catch up with your favorite character actors from Star Trek Deep Space Nine. So far this season I have seen Captain Benjamin Sisko (Avery Brooks) and now Odo (Rene Auberjonois) and cast photos from previous years include Captiain Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) in them. This a great play to close out the 2007-2008 season and I hope you can get out to see it before it is gone.


Click here to check out the official website.

The Happening

M. Night Shyamalan is back with his latest film starring Mark Wahlberg and Zooey Deschanel. I am a fan and love the films The Sixth Sense, Unbreakable, Signs and The Village but this one is by far the weakest effort yet. The character development is almost non-existant, the whole disappearing bees thread is brought up and just dropped as quickly, and the environmental revenge theme does not work or pays off. The premise was there but just did not seem to get executed or delivered on. I was much happier watching The Incredible Hulk earlier in the day.

Click here to check out the official website.

The Incredible Hulk

The Hulk is finally back on the big screen and I will say it here first - it is not as good as Iron Man as Marvel Studios would like you to believe but it is fun. The opening scenes take great effort to purge any links to Ang Lee's 2003 Hulk and firmly tie it to The Incredible Hulk television series. The cameos by Stan "the Man" Lee, Bill Bixby and Lou Ferrigno are great and well done as well as the signature Hulk images from the comics. With the Tony Stark appearance at the end of the film, it is good to see Marvel is using their films to cross promote their properties and set expectations for future releases and an unfolding of a Marvel universe on the bid screen. So is the next film going to be about the Leader starring Tim Blake Nelson?

Click here to check out the official website.

Alicia Keys @ Verizon Center

The Alicia Keys' concert opens with Jordan Sparks from American Idol who performs her two hits, Tatttoo and No Air, to fan delight. After this we get the video wrapper from Ceder The Entertainer as a home town minister which is funny and gets Alicia to the stage is a multi-media showcase. Alicia is fabulous and stunning as always and her performance is enchanting. Her show has a message and reaffirms her avid support for helping others with endorsments for her Keep A Child Alive Virus program. This was a great concert and hopefully you will get to see it when her tour hits your town.

Click here to check out the official website.

The Strangers

Home invasion fear is back on the big screen with this new release from Rogue Pictures. Scott Speedman and Liv Tyler have returned home after a night out that did not turn out as they expected and is only a foreshadowing of what is to come. This is an ok film but loses it for me when the victims keep returning to the house when they could just easy walk down the street to get out of their situation as the predators are still in the house. This movie is a rental at best and not worth going to the theater to see unless you are a die-hard fan of horror like myself.

Click here to check out the official website.

Kung Fu Panda

The lastest Dreamworks animated feature gets its voice talents from Jack Black, Dustin Hoffman, Angelina Jolie, Jackie Chan, and Lucy Liu. Po is the panda son of a duck who runs a noodle shop but dreams of being a member of the Furious Five, the kung fu protectors of the valley. The animation is great but not yet as good as PIXAR. The story is engaging and funny and is appropriate for the whole family. Being a Jack Black film per se you know Kyle Gass can not be far away and so he can be found in the credits as the voice of a character named KG Shaw - long live Tenacious D!

Click here to check out the official website.