Step Brothers

Will Ferrell and John C. Rielly are back on the screen together with this dysfunctional family comedy. I was not a great fan of Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby but did enjoy it more than this film. There are a few funny scenes in the film that mostly center around Richard Jenkins and Mary Steenburgen as the parents at their wits end with their sons who never will grow up. Will Ferrell comedies are either a hit or miss with more hits than misses usually. If you want to see something truly funny and inspired, check out his short The Landlord.

Click here to check out the official website.

The X-Files: I Want to Believe

Mulder and Scully are back for this new big screen episode of the X-Files. I have to say episode because there was nothing in the film that gave me a sense of seeing something bigger than I would have seen in a regular episode on TV. But since I was at San Diego Comicon, I decided to see it due to all the rabid fans that surrounded me. It was OK and that was it.

Click here to check out the official website.

San Diego Comicon 2008 - Suicide Girls Rave

While at Comicon this year I had the pleasure of meeting a few of the Suicide Girls at their booth ( Chloe and Nixon are the best!). After an unforgettable sales pitch I was hooked and got access to their site for the next year. The girls on-site at Comicon and on the website are gorgeous and just a little dark, very gothic and visually demented - just the way I like them. Turns out they were also hosting a party / rave with Comicon at a local old church that has since be converted for hosting night club parties and receptions. Here are the pics from the event that I took and I hope you enjoy them as much as I enjoyed being there.

Trailer Park of Terror

I have been a fan of this indy comic since I first found it at San Diego Comicon back in 2006 and learned about a possible film when I returned in 2007. Well its 2008 and the film is here and the creators gave me an advance screening pass to see it tonight with the director and members of the cast. The film was everything my West Virginia hillbilly and horror hound soul could hope for. Nichole Hiltz as Norma was perfect and the white trashiness of the Trailer Park and its inhabitants really brought through the look and feel of the comic book I had come to love. A soon-to-be classic that I have already pre-ordered on Amazon.com.

Click here to check out the official website.

Sex and the City

So I had some time to kill and nothing to do. I liked the series though I never watched it on a regular basis and have never seen all of the episodes. So a big screen movie should have some more skin, right? Why did it have to be Cynthia Nixon? I enjoyed it any way and now I have something to say around the office water cooler if asked if I saw it.

Click here to check out the official website.

The Dark Knight

Christopher Nolan has delivered the perfect Batman movie along with the perfect Joker. From the first scene of the movie, I never saw Heath Ledger on the screen but beheld a fully realized and terrifying Joker. Even though the campy elements were there they are twisted and downright frightening because you never know what the Joker will do next or how it fits in to his overall plan. Aaron Eckhart as Two-Face is fantastic as well and you feel Harvey Dent's pain as he is transformed in to a monster reflecting his fractured mind. If there is a third movie, I bet even money that it would have to do with Arkham Asylum under the watchful eye of Hugo Strange and his patient, Scarface - gangsters, Batman's secret identity discovered and the nuthouse - AWESOME!

Click here to check out the official website.

Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog

Joss Whedon could not leave well enough alone and has dipped his hands back in to the musical genre with this creative, low-budget, masterpiece. The three acts star Neil Patrick Harris, Nathan Fillion and Felicia Day as Dr Horrible (or Billy), Captain Hammer and Penny in a comic-book style love triangle. The songs are great, the sidekicks (or roommates) are pathetic and the laughs just keep coming. But in classic Whedon story telling, nothing comes without great loss and pain. Be sure to check this out before you will need to pay for it.

Click here to check out the official website.

Hellboy II: The Golden Army

Guillermo del Toro and Mike Mignola are back with the next installment in the Hellyboy franchise with Ron Perlman back as the big red ape himself. Hellboy still drinks beer, loves cats and wants to be accepted as a regular guy but now is having relationship issues with his girlfriend Liz Sherman played by Selma Blair. This time out the B.P.R.D. team has a new leader by the name of Johann Krauss, a sealed suit with a fishbowl head filled with smoked voiced by Seth MacFarlane of Family Guy fame. The monsters are more plentiful and the effects are even more amazing and do not detract from the story based on the rise of man and the fall of the fantastical. This film is a must see and another example of why Guillermo is a fan favorite director and the best at what he does.

Click here to check out the official website.

Hancock

Will Smith is back for his annual big summer flick just in time for Independence Day and the trailers did not deliver the movie I expected to see once in the theater. Most of the comedic moments are in the trailer and I see where critics were put off kilter because the last half of the story did not seen to follow the set up in the first half of the film. That said, I liked the film because it was not what I was expecting. There is big action but it does not seem to over-shadow the developing story between Smith and Theron. I do not think it will be the big hit that the studio wants but it does give Will Smith a big thumbs up from me for doing something very different and off-center.

Click here to check out the official website.

Disney's The Lion King @ The Kennedy Center

This show is amazing! Out of my two years of being a season ticket holder for the theater program at Kennedy, this is hands-down the best performance and production I have seen and I thought nothing would supercede the Royal Shakespeare Company's production from last year. The imagery, dancing, singing, and creative vision just floored me from the opening solo. Everyone must see this show before it leaves if at all possible. The Lion King is not to be missed.

Click here to check out the official website.