I’ve managed to do a bit of movie watching lately. First up was the Matrix Reloaded. I didn’t get to see this one in the theaters when it came out, but I decided to pick up the DVD at Best Buy. I have heard a lot about this movie, but I still enjoyed it. One of the things that got to me was how fake a lot of things looked. I know when you see movies on the big screen, film tends to make some of the computer effects look realistic. But robbed of the graininess of film and on my TV some of the sequences were very artificial (the freeway chase comes to mind as well as Neo fighting all those Smiths). I don’t remember noticing this with the first Matrix – save the bullet time sequence. Come to think of it, I really didn’t notice it until I saw a special explaining how it was done. Other than some of the fakeness, I thought it was better than most people said it was. I know I will be seeing the next one when it comes out next week.
Another DVD recently watched was the Star Trek V Collectors Edition. Many people consider this movie to be one of the worst of the series, but in fact I like this movie more as time progresses. Sure the special effects were doomed by Bran Ferren (I really think Paramount should let them re-do all of the effects shots in the movie a la TMP), but as a character piece it holds up (certainly better than that Nemesis crap). The special features on this DVD were great as well – I enjoyed the behind the scenes stuff as well as the myriad of trailers. I remember that I labeled some of my old video tapes whenever I caught a Trek movie trailer on them. It also makes me want to go through the Trek IV disc since it is still in its wrapper. One day!
I actually made it out to the Cineplex to see Scary Movie 3. I remember liking the first two, and when I found out David Zucker was directing, I knew I wanted to see it. The laughs were fast and furious, and I am always a sucker for spoofs like these. It’s not anything earth shattering or mind blowing, but a decent way to spend a few hours. I was disappointed that David’s mom Charlotte Zucker wasn’t there for a brief cameo as she is in most of his films.
Work continues on the WDW photos, I’ve managed to caption most of the Magic Kingdom and should have the rest done soon. My friends Mice and Wendy are in Florida this week (and seem to have a good internet connection, not like me) check out his site and read updates while he is there.
One last note – I managed to win some auctions on eBay of old vintage Disneyland photos!! I’m very excited!