War of the Worlds was an well-produced subplot of an alien invasion movie.

Now you're being glib.

You don't know the history of alien invasion movies. I've studied the history of alien invasion movies.

Is it true most alien invasions can be repelled by taking vitamins?

Indeed, but he's not really too far off the mark. I love Spielberg's War of the Worlds (well, until the last two minutes), but really, it and Signs are the only alien invasion movies that favor ordinary people over scientists and military on the frontlines. Tom Cruise is roughly the equivalent of Vivica A. Fox in Independence Day.

What I love most about it is that despite the transposition of time and place and the addition of a daughter for the protagonist, Spielberg's movie is very faithful to Wells' novel.

I don't believe I said that their situation was unique, merely that they handled it well. Personally, if someone threatened to shoot me, I wouldn't be too inclined to smile and play guitar. Even knowing that nothing happened to the Chicks, the concert scenes made me feel rather claustrophobic.

And if they annoy you that much, I would probably not waste my time in renting it. They (and the documentary itself) don't really go out of their way to endear themselves to their detractors.

Pretty much. The whole movie is scurry-and-run, scurry-and-run, staying alive until the alien invasion situation is resolved by forces that have nothing to do with the characters.

To be fair to the Dixie Chicks, Country Music as a subculture is operates in ways that most other people in the entertainment industry don't have to deal with. It's less coporate--less neutral about distribution and word of mouth. That said, I can't help but find Natalie Maines off-putting. She's like an angrier Gwenyth Paltrow.

I watched Half Nelson over the weekend, which I expected to love, but didn't. I just couldn't get into it. I thought Gosling was good and all, but meh. I didn't even end up finishing it. Maybe if I'd seen it in the theaters, I would've liked it more. I also thought the girl looked more like she was 25 than 13 in some scenes.

I also watched Idiocracy, which was meh, but pretty much what I expected. It had funny parts, and I love me some Luke Wilson, but it was only ok. My brother, however, loved it. I'm pretty sure he ran out and bought it after he watched it.

Oh, and I watched Hollywoodland, which I also thought was ok - it was actually better than I expected. I found Diane Lane incredibly annoying, though. And as illogical as it was, I really wanted some sort of resolution to GR death, even though I knew going in that there was no way there could be.

Ben Affleck was robbed!!

Er... sorry...

Did Diane Lane annoy you, or her character? Because her character was supposed to, I think.

He totally was!

I liked the Superman stuff (it helped that I didn't really know much about Reeves) but I found the whole cliched ' 'tec who has to choose between career and marriage blah, blah' stuff fairly annoying and I didn't think the two stories were that well intergrated. Affleck was great though.

You know, that was my major beef, too - Adrien Brody's storyline was just so disposable.

I don't like Affleck, but he nailed that role. The dectective plot did feel superfluous.

However it was the movie Black Dahlia should have been.

Gingerbread Man: Like Beyond Therapy this is the work of a bad writer who renounced the finished Altman product and again I find myself thinking as weak as the source material was, Altman bastardized it. In this case it was John Grisham, from an unpublished script. How bad does a story have to be for Grisham to shelve it?

For some reason Altman and the studio fought over what cut to use. Since Polygram abandoned their cut I’m left to believe there was nothing to salvage.

Altman manages to mangle what should be a by-the-numbers genre exercise. And it doesn’t get anymore by the numbers than Grisham:
(Southern Lawyer) + (Client in distress) + (Lawyer takes law into own hands)= Best seller

The movie takes place under the immanent threat of Hurricane Geraldo, which is either the slowest moving Hurricane in history or the Savannah legal system is so quick you can get a committal hearing and then a will probated in under a week.

Where the Altmany scuttles a typically slight effort is his notorious lack of rehearsal. When your leads are from Ireland, South Africa, Holland, New York and Illinois you should go out of your way to keep them from sounding like Kevin Costner was their southern accent coach.

Altman has a prodigious talent for getting actresses to take it all off, yet Famke Jansen remains fully clothed throughout the movie. Why God?! Why?!

He could have at least had Famke crush the killer with her thighs.

Last night I watched Les Miserables: The Dream Cast with some friends and I have to say, I changed my mind: Marius is kind of a doofus. He and Cosette can have each other. Eponine deserved someone better. Eponine/Enjolras 4-EVA!!!

I could watch One Day More 1000 times and I'd still get chills.