Leann Rimes concert review

Leann Rimes concert

Admittedly, I'm not a country music fan. I do own a Johnny Cash album, and I did buy a Dixie Chicks album (whole 'nother story I'm not getting into right now), but I'm pretty clueless when it comes to country music. So, when a friend of mine scored a couple of free tickets to see Leann Rimes, I said, "Ok, that could be fun."

It was. She has a great voice, her backing band was solid, and there was some variety in the music I wasn't expecting. I think I understood about a quarter of the lyrics. Maybe it's her accent, and maybe it's her enunciation (or lack thereof). I could catch most of the choruses (chori?), but even those kind of blurred together. She did play at Abravanel Hall, which has good acoustics, to put it mildly. That makes me think my ears weren't suffering from loud (it wasn't) concert distortion.

I was thinking about picking up an album of hers, to see if I can hear anything more, but I'm not that motivated. I'm not sure which album would be a good choice, either. Maybe if I'm kicking around GrayWhale, I'll pick one up used.

Get Smart review

Get Smart review

First things first: As a kid, I absolutely despised the Get Smart TV show. Way, way too stupid. I was a serious kid, I guess. This movie was quite dumb, too, but a lot of fun in the process. Steve Carell was born to play the part (sorry, Steve) of Maxwell Smart. There were a lot (a lot) of laugh-out-loud spots. It'd be even better with beer.

The highlight of the movie, of course, was Anne Hathaway. Holy smokes. I don't know whether the original series had Agent 99 being much more competent than Smart, but it isn't hard to imagine. She had a fun interview on Leno, pushing the movie - very funny.

One pleasant surprise was The Rock (Dwayne Johnson) as the super-macho (yeah, that's a stretch) field agent. He was a riot, playing it straight. Come to think of it, it seemed like everyone played it straight, which made it pretty funny. He also had a very funny interview on Leno - what is it about that guy? You'd think he was a comedian or something. ;-)

Iron Man review

Iron Man review

I finally got to see this last weekend. Everyone I'd talked to enjoyed it, and I'd seen lots of good reviews, so I was ready to be impressed. It was good, and it was fun. Some points:

• Yeah, Robert Downey is perfect as Tony Stark - arrogant, swaggering rich boy.
• Fabulous supporting cast:
  • Jeff Bridges as the bald second in command with facial hair. Obviously, the bad guy.
  • Gweneth Paltrow as the boss' personal assistant. Some good lines, a nice dress, but a little too much the comic-book cliche. They did make fun of that during the movie, though, which was cute.
    
  • Leslie Bibb as the nosy, annoying investigative journalist. Yes, very hot.
• All that said, the bad guys weren't quite bad enough. Iron Man ends up fighting... another iron man. It did have the feel of Robocop, with the hero being the smaller, less powerful version, figuring out a way to defeat the bigger, tougher version.
• The fight scenes were fabulous. 'Nuff said.
  
• The scenes where Stark is trying to figure out the controls on his new suit were tense and hilarious. The robot assistants were great.

I think I need to catch this one again at Brewvies. Maybe I'll do that after seeing The Hulk. When's a movie coming out about The Avengers? No, the comic book Avengers, not Patrick McNee and Diana Rigg (and I think there was a movie version of that series, but I didn't catch it).

Lots of movies

I'm so far behind on my movie reviews, I'm going to go the quick and dirty route. See below. No, I don't know why there's all that dead space in there.

Movie	Genre	Rating	Blurb
Flags of Our Fathers	War	Excellent	Heroes from battle of Iwo Jima are used to sell war bonds
Letters From Iwo Jima	War	Even better	That same battle from the Japanese perspective
The Last King of Scotland	History	Excellent	Forest Whitaker is amazing playing Idi Amin. A friend of mine asked, "King of Scotland? He is black?" ;-)
Doctor Jeckyll and Mister Hyde	Horror	Good	Classic with Spencer Tracy
American Gangster	Crime	Very good	Great late 60s / early 70s feel in a different type of gangster movie
SuperBad	Comedy	Good	Funny, gross, silly, McLovin
Ratatouille	Comedy	Great	Animated tale of a cooking rat in Paris. Some of the graphics were terrifying - the rats looked way too real. Some were just striking, e.g. Ego's trip back to his childhood.
License to Wed	Romantic Comedy	Ok	Predictable but cute. Robin Williams is a blast, as he usually is.
Bad Santa	Crime Comedy	Raunchy	Yes, "Raunchy" is a rating. Very crude, with some extremely funny bits. Lauren Graham was great.
Waiting...	Comedy	Ok	Describes the wonderful work environment in a not-quite-fast-food restaurant
Kevin Smith Speaks	Lecture	Good	If you're a fan, it's fabulous. He does the lecture circuit, stopping at a number of universities. He's very engaging.
Babel	Drama	Very good	Interesting interweaving stories
3:10 to Yuma	Western	Good	Apparently a remake. Kind of has that feel of an old western. Gritty, but not to the degree of an Unforgiven.

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Too many movies