Movie Review: The Interpreter (2005)
The Interpreter , directed by Sydney Pollack, is a very smart political thriller. Critics have called it an old fashioned movie and that it is an old school political thriller in the vein of a Manchurian Candidate . This is meant as a compliment and high praise. Being called old fashioned may...
Pug
Book Review: Listen, You Pencil Neck Geeks - Freddie Blassie
As it says on the book jacket, this book is about a Legend of Wrestling. This is not just faint praise or exaggeration. Classy Freddie Blassie is a true legend of the ring and his career spans a half century as a wrestler and a manager. All I knew of Blassie was that he was a manager and that...
Pug
Movie Review: Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (2005)
How do you turn a 700+ page novel into a movie? Well, you either make a 4 hour movie or you cut, cut, cut and turn into a 2.5 hour movie. The filmmakers decided on the latter because there was no good splitting point in the novel to make GOF: Part I and GOF: Part II. What we end up with is the...
Pug
Book Review: Masquerade - Gayle Lynds
It was interesting reading Masquerade after Gayle Lynds latest novel The Coil . What makes it interesting was that The Coil was the sequel Masquerade and followed some of the same characters that we first meet in Masquerade . Knowing who the characters are in the second book changed how I viewed...
Guest
Movie Review: Kingdom of Heaven (2005)
Kingdom of Heaven is completely different. This is a historical epic from the director of Gladiator, Ridley Scott. Nobody does a historical epic like Scott. He should have directed Troy, Alexander, and King Arthur. Here we have Balion (Orlando Bloom), a blacksmith who meets his Crusader father (Liam...
Guest
Movie Review: Out of Time (2003)
A film by Carl Franklin Out of Time is a reasonably slick drama about who really committed a crime. The setting is Banyon Key, Florida and Matt Whitlock (Denzel Washington) is the chief of police. He is having a rather torrid affair with Ann Harrison (Sanaa Lathan), a woman who is married to...
Pug
Movie Review: City of God (2002)
A film by Fernando Meirelles and Katia Lund Roger Ebert has heaped praise upon praise for City of God and all of it is warranted. The City of God slums are an offshoot of Rio de Janeiro that were created to keep the poor and the homeless away from the tourist centers of Rio. The result was a...
Pug
Movie Review: Police Academy 2 (1985)
A film by Jerry Paris "Police Academy 2: Their First Assignment" is the first of six sequels to 1984's "Police Academy". The screwball recruits have graduated from the Academy and are now ready for their first assignment as full fledged police officers. With the city in the midst of a crime wave,...
Guest
Movie Review: Ice Princess (2005)
Casey Carlyle (Michelle Trachtenberg) is a science geek. There is no simpler way to say it. She is an excellent student who gets straight A's and her physics teacher believes that she has the chance to gain a major physics scholarship. To make the most of this chance she needs to spend the summer...
Pug
Movie Review: Monster (2003)
A film by Patty Jenkins Roger Ebert listed Monster as the best film of all of 2003. Charlize Theron won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her portrayal of serial killer Aileen Wuornos. For months before the Oscars the talk had been about how amazing Theron s performance was and how not...
Pug