Brian Bentley

Melinda and I were in Austin the end of last week for her brother Tom’s wedding. Here’s a pic of Melinda and Tom from the end of the evening just before Tom and his bride, Kelly, took off for their honeymoon in Bora Bora.

The ceremony was beautiful and the reception was top notch. It was such a fun trip and a special thing for us to get to see both sides of Melinda’s familiy and spend some time with cousins and aunts and uncles we don’t get to see very often. (Happy birthday Krystin.)

I’ve added over 40 pics from the weekend here.

“X-Men:The Last Stand”
Run time: 1:27

I love movies like this - meant for kids, but with plenty of references adults will get a chuckle out of. “Over the Hedge” is funny. Really funny. The characters are loveable, the story moves quickly and the all-star cast of voices is the icing on the cake. Bruce Willis is RJ, a racoon who finds himself under a tight deadline to replenish a bear’s food in one week. He stumbles upon a family of animals led by Verne the turtle, voiced by Garry Shandling, who are beginning the process of storing food for the winter. The cast is rounded out by William Shatner, Nick Nlte, Wanda Sykes and Steve Carrell who steals every scene his character, Hammy the squirrel, jitters and jolts into.

“Hedge” is a great movie for kids and adults and a movie I would go see again.

Rating: 5 out of 5

“X-Men:The Last Stand”
Run time: 1:44

Yes, one man can ruin a movie — or the absense thereof. Brian Singer’s direction on the first two X-Men movies was great, but I have to admit he had excellent scripts to work with. In this one, not so much. Brett Ratner gets a script that takes one of the comics best storylines ever (Phoenix), leaves out some of the characters from X-Men 2 (Nightcrawler) and sort of grazes over things while tallying a high body count, with some surprises.

The original X-Men was high on action and introduced the characters. X-Men 2, furthered the storylines and delved intot he characters as people. X-Men 3 does neither. If you a huge fan of the comics, you will hate this movie. If you are a fan of the movies, you’ll like it but you won’t be overwhelmed. I’m stuck in the middle.

Rating: 3 out of 5

“The DaVinci Code”
Run time: 2:29

I’m going to avoid all the hubbub about the content of this movie and it’s “assualt” on religion and talk about the film itself. I had not read the book (see a theme with these adaptations?), but I found the hype of this movie being a cross between “Raiders of the Lost Ark” and a edge of your seat thriller to be off the mark. Sure, there’s action. Sure, there’s a mystery to be solved, but it’s not an action packed movie like “MI:3″.

Ron Howard does a great job and he infuses some of his “A Beautiful Mind” imagery in this movie with Tom Hanks’ character having the ability to see things in outside the box. Ok, Howard practically replicates it from “Mind”, but it works here, too.

I found Tom Hanks’ performance to be a tad lackluster, almost wooden, and there is little to no chemistry with the female lead. However, Ian McKellan and Jean Reno are superb in suport, the movie’s pacing is good and the story itself makes you think. Just keep in mind one thing:

IT’S ONLY A MOVIE!!

Rating: 3.75 out of 5

I’m beyond tired so here’s the Reader’s Digest version for now:

Every year a thing called “The 24 Hour Video Race” comes along and the idea is that in 24 hours (midnight to midnight), you must complete a 5 minute short film using a specific theme, prop, line of dialogue and a location. This year, Drew, Angela, Wilbur, Josh and I competed in the race under Drew’s direction and excellent script. The theme this year was “cover story”, let’s just say Drew had a masterplan all along.

I’ll talk more about our entry, “Lee”, later but I only got 4 hours sleep last night, and the day started with a 3.5 mile charity walk at 8:00 am so forgive me for being brief.

UPDATE: We advanced to the final round of 6, but placed 3rd. I’ve posted it here.

“Mission: Impossible III”
Run time: 2:06

As Larry King would say “Summer blockbuster season, hello.” The maiden MI was good. MI:2 was ok. MI:3 is the best, and just plain kicks you in the pants. Tom Cruise saves the world (I’m not even going to make the obligatory joke). For all the negative press he seems to deserve sometimes gets, Tom Cruise is a bonafide action star, and this movie is full of his risk-taking stunts and terrorist arse kicking.

It’s a brilliant directorial debut for J.J. Abrams of “Lost” and “Alias” fame and he knows his action and plot twists, but let’s not forget he did “Felicity” and “What About Brian” so his frosted side has us concerned for the chartacters, too. For those “Felicity” fans out there, you’ll notice two alums from the show in MI:3. Did I mention Abrams wrote “Regarding Henry”, “Forvever Young”, and “Gone Fishin’” too? I had no idea, either, but when you search IMDB…sorry, I digress. Back to the review:

Philip Seymour Hoffman plays the villian with steely resolve, Laurence Fishburne is the hard nosed IMF director, Billy Crudup (Sans beard and electric guitar) is Cruise’s boss, Ving Rhames is the computer guy, Felicity herself is in it, the guy that played Elvis on the CBS movie flies a chopper and Shaun from “Shaun of the Dead” does something in a computer lab.

You know you’re going to see it. You know you’re going to like Cruise. You know you’re going to eat popcorn and enjoy the 2 hour thrill ride that is a J.J. Abrams movie….if you throw out the other ones I mentioned earlier.

Rating: 5 out of 5

“American Dreamz”
Run time: 1:47

I can only imagine the pitch from Paul Weitz, whose credits include “About A Boy”, “American Pie”, “In Good Company” and “The Klumps”. I’m purely speculating but I would imagine it went something like this:

“Ok, everybody loves American Idol, right? What if Simon Cowell was the only judge and he hated his job?”

“My wife loves that grey haired guy” the studio head interjects.

“Well, this version is called American Dreamz and it’s judged by the cynical Brit, Martin Tweed. I worked with Hugh Grant on “About A Boy”, he’ll do it.”

“He’s very charming…” the studio head begins, but is quickly cut off by Weitz.

“Now we find the next big star from middle America, but she’s a real backstabbing, win-at-all-costs trollop. I loved Mandy Moore in “How To Deal” and “Chasing Liberty”. She has spunk, let’s get her. To make it fun, let’s say an Al-Queda operative living with his cousins in L.A. accidently gets picked for the show by the kid that kept saying milf in “American Pie”, I know him, too.”

“The Al-Queda guy?” the studio head asks.

“No,” a frustrated Weitz replies, realizing the studio head has no real vision or creativity, “the American Dreamz producer, but follow me here, because this is where it makes it’s ever important, to me at least, social commentary — what if the President was simply a puppet of his Chief of Staff and, after getting re-elected and going into seclusion for weeks, is persuaded to be a guest judge on the final episode of American Dreamz? Dennis Quaid did “In Good Company” and Willam Defoe owes me a favor so done and done.”

“Can you get Carmen Electra to make a cameo?” the studio head chimes in.

“Sure, sure, but here’s where we tie it all in. Mandy Moore’s boyfriend joins the Army after she dumps him, he goes to Iraq blah, blah, blah, comes home a war hero. Her agent seizes the opportunity for good press and she takes him back. Chris Klein did the “American Pie” movies for me. He’s a good kid and with all this Katie Holmes stuff, he could use the distraction.”

“He really took it on the chin in the whole TomKat deal..” the studio head offers.

“ANYWAY, I don’t want to spoil anything, but the gist is the Al-Queda op makes it to the finals against Mandy Moore with the President in prime striking distance. You can piece together what happens from here, right?” an exhausted Weitz asks after birthing his latest opus.

“You’ll get Carmen Electra for sure, right?” poses the studio head, giving Weitz the thumbs up.

Or I could be way off, but the movie poster does says this: Imagine a country where the President never reads the newspaper, where the government goes to war for all the wrong reasons, and more people vote for a pop idol than their next President.”

Far fetched. Very un-PC. Biting and outspoken. My kind of movie.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5 (only because the drunk 40 something “gals” behind us at the Studio Movie Grill last weekend would not shut up)