"That movie was horrible." "It's a pretty good movie. You should see it."

^Josh and Kyle talking about the same movie. That pretty much sums up their relationship in a nutshell.

Vacation was largely uninteresting. I'm not going to play-by-play it, rather I'll give a quick list of anything remotely interesting.

-Some out of the way book store still had miniatures from Clone Strike. Awesome.
-Went to a completely awesome Italian resturaunt. Classy 18th-century style eating area with paintings and flowers and stuff. The booths used old church pews for seats. Good pizza.
-I walked through the forests along the roads fairly often. Got attacked by bugs once.
-Saw an albino deer.
-Saw Cars, reviewed further into the post.
-Found classy store selling a bunch of pewter fantasy statues and figurines. Way expensive, though.

The Da Vinci Code
A good-natured shrug pretty much sums up my feelings for this film.

Let's see, Ian McKellan was in it and he beat up a guy using only a cane. That's one star. I enjoyed the book and the movie was pretty faithful to it, so that's two stars. Oh, and I saw it with Therese. Who I love. That's three stars.

I don't know. It's got an all-star cast with the likes of Tom Hanks, Jean Reno and Alfred Molina, but they don't do much except talk. And say "shit" in French.

I suppose already reading the book takes away from the enjoyment, since a good chunk of the film is exposition, and when you already know what every character is going to say it brings down the enjoyment level a bit.

It's definetely well-directed and nearly every scene is pretty to look at, since they get into the authentic locations for the most part. The few action scenes are done very well, especially when Silas is involved. The car chase scene, though not from the book, was fun to watch.

So I guess it was good. Definetely $6.50-at-the-theater good. But $24.99-on-DVD good? I don't think so.
Rating: B

Cars
I am such a whore for Pixar. Really, I am. They could make a movie starring only CGI rocks and I would go see it. Twice.

Cars isn't Pixar's best offering. Make no mistake, it's easily the best CGI film released this year, but you have to admit that The Incredibles is a hard act to follow.

First the animation. For this film, Pixar focused on light and shadow effects and it really shows. The scenes involving racing are easily the highlights of the film. The skill of the animators really shows there and in their landscapes.

The voice talent is the typical level of awesomeness. Owen Wilson voices Lightning McQueen, the main character, and he is joined by the likes of Paul Newman and Bonnie Hunt, though I could've done without Larry the Cable Guy. Fun stuff throughout.

The story is typical G-rated life-lessons fare and it works rather well. I thought the ending was a bit of a cop-out, though. If Lightning had won the race instead of going back to help The King, it would have still gotten across the message that anything is possible with the help of friends, but they manage to work the ending well enough.

I liked a lot of the references and in-jokes. Arnold Schwarzeneggar as a car was absolutely hilarious and John Ratzenberger making fun of himself at the end was great. The credits are fun to watch because they redo key scenes from previous Pixar films using Car versions of the characters. Quite amusing.

While it's not Pixar at their best, Cars is still a very entertaining ride.
Rating: A-

Saw a performance of The Music Man the other week with Therese. It was pretty good, and I saw Talyah and Jesse. Hi Talyah and Jesse!

There's a prerelease tournament for War of the Dragon Queen this Saturday. I'm rather looking forward to going even if it will set me back $45. Hopefully, I can at least count on doing better than I did at the War Drums release.

And finally,

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Find out your Matrix name!
http://matrix.orb6.com/name_generator.php

Mr. Butschli is not your "real" name, but the name the machines gave you. When you free your mind you will be Theseus the Pod Waker.
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Cool.