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Rate 1 (FR#^&% MESS !) to 5 (how very tidy !). Only rate the latest picture, otherwise I can’t keep track of the average.

Total: 1198 out of 367 votes > Average is: 3.264

The Sharks have the mob under control, staying at number one with a respectable $31.7 million. Only a 33% drop, a feat not pulled often.
Number 2 is for Billy Bob Thornton starrer Friday Night Lights. This based on facts school football drama took in $20.6 million. At number 3, Ladder 49 climbs down on step, taking in $13.3 million.
Fox’s Taxi remake, starring SNL’s Jimmy Fallon and Queen Latifah, didn’t make enough rounds, cashing in only $12.1 million, good for number 4. The Forgotten sticks at the fifth spot with $7.5 million.

When J.J. Abrams creates a new series, you can usually expect two things. One is of course the simplistic intro theme (Alias, for instance, was totally Flash based, while this is a 5 second 4 letter 3DSMax scene). The second is excellent writing, usually able to stretch story lines across a whole season. And again, he shows it with this simple group of people lost on uninhabited (or is it ?) island, after being thrown off course, which means the chance of rescue seems nigh. What ensues are multifacetted written episodes, mixing drama with mystery, cutting between character interaction and flashbacks, executed by a very able cast (starring drama veterans Matthew Fox, Terry O’Quinn, and a whole bunch of new comers). With only 13 episodes stacked, and good ratings, a full season order is probably on its way. With the power of Abrams behind this series (and hence longevity, proven in series like Alias), I wouldn’t mind a few more years on this creepy island.

What looked like a promising start, turns out to be another copy of CSI:Miami. The pilot revealed workaholic Gary Sinise, with some personal drama haunting him. 2 Episodes further down the road, we only know he’s overworked. The other characters don’t fare well either, they’re just talking objects with enlighting dialogue about the case files. It follows the same CSI routines of its two bigger brothers, but the lack of fun and personal drama (albeit pretty low on the original CSI series) make it looks like it’s Miami’s twin. This means I’ll probably give this show a few more shots, but it’s definitely off the high anticipation list. Which leaves the only one suprise this franchise still has to offer. How many more The Who songs can be turned into a catchy theme with only minimal editing ?

Everything that Shrek was, this is not. Fresh, not. Fun, not really. Smart, not at all. And now I’m comparing it just with its fellow Dreamworks brother. If I had to compare it with rival Disney, we’d end up with Finding Nemo pretty fast. There, I still remember the characters. Again, not so with Shark Tale. If only it wasn’t 3D animation, I’d definitely say they were all stereotypes. In short, it’s an ocean full of cliches. You’d be better off enjoying the beach instead.5½.

If you thought black guys dressed up as girls, AND being totally under white make-up was hard, guess again. Sitting through this movie without a fast forward button is much much much harder. Luckily I had one, but still, it’s a tough one.
Here and there the Wayans brothers delivered some funny movies, so I had not expected this movie to totally suck. But with bad acting, lame recycled jokes and a lot of cliche story twists, you can go a long way. And you don’t even find out halfway through the movie. You will have this nagging doomsday feeling somewhere during the third minute already. By the end, you’ve either fallen asleep, or if you’re in a movie theatre, you’ve probably walked out already.2.

Usually, I don’t have that much faith in quizes and their conclusions. But actually, this one is right on the target. It’s the Daily Show with Jon Stewart that I’ve been watching the most these last few years.

For an independent movie, it really tries hard to be a Hollywood blockbuster. There’s drama and comedy. There’s teen school stuff. There’s the obvious satire. There’s the moral preaching (that’s pretty ironic, as it’s satiring Christianity). There are a handful of stories and subjects. It’s just too much too handle, and it falls flat. In the end, it’s so thinned out, there’s physically no depth to find here. On the up side, the acting is good, even if the total movie is predictable (though you may not notice because of all the things going around).6-.

As the title suggests, it’s a Dawn of the Dead-inspired horror comedy, British style. Winning rave reviews from the online community and fairly good reviews from the known critics, I thought this would be splendid. Truth be told, luckily I didn’t see it in the movie theatre, as this is a typical movie best served on your homevideo system.
A low budget Working Title production, they try to focus on the characters, which is always fine. However, it doesn’t reach any highs or lows, hanging somewhere between predictable and fairly enjoyable. Same goes for the story itself. The humor is what you expect from the Brits. Combined with the absent visual extravaganza, rent it if you have a lot of time to kill.6½.

Shark Tale took a fairly big bite out of the box office, despite luke-warm critical reviews. A $49.1 million bite is good for an October record number.
Firefighting John Travolta and Joaquin Phoenix flushes away some $22.8 million in Ladder 49, again, despite mostly mediocre reviews.
The Forgotten, still fresh in the memory, takes in $12 million in its second week.
At number 4, Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow holds on another day, with $3.4 million.

So you have movie producers (Mel Gibson/Bruce Davey) teaming up with soapies (Aaron Spelling/E. Duke Vincent) and a dash of drama (Ken Topolsky, who learned his trade when producing for Party of Five) mixed together. What do you get ? High production value with halfbaked substance. A nice shell of a half filled egg.
It’s another single mom with two children series, where the boy gets to be a batboy for the New York Empires, a fictive major league baseball club. We see a bit of family drama, school stuff, and of course lotsa baseball.
But I see mediocrity from a mile away, try to imagine when I saw this show just 2 feet away from my LCD screen. The acting is mediocre. The characters are stereotypes with a hollow echo to emphasise that. The dialogue is simple and predictable. The story line has perfect S turns everywhere. It’s like a scriptbook template with the correct words replaced to match this show. Sure the show has a bigger budget than most can ever hope to receive, but everyone is on auto-pilot, the writers and the actors, including Dean Cain and Christopher Lloyd.
Luckily, this series has no future for export (nowhere in the world can it be sold, only in the States is baseball a major sport), so hopefully, a well deserved demotion to the minor league (i.e. cancellation, though CBS probably needs the demo this show is targeting to break away from the “old” network status) will follow soon.

Another intense suspense thriller worth watching. When Michael Mann is behind the camera, you usually get above average insight in the characters. Exactly so with Tom Cruise’s first bad guy role, a vicious ruthless killer. Like all his previous roles, he plays it with utter conviction, leaving no room for doubting his acting abilities. Same goes for Jamie Foxx, playing the sharp yet uncertain cab driver at the wrong place at the wrong time. This strict storyline with minimal branching always has a sense of suspense going on, and the dialogue in the cab adds depth. And while it may feel slow here and there, overall it’s intense enough to recommend this to the general public.8-.

A new show on the WB. While we’ve come to know what kinda of drama series they’ve been churning out over the years, this one is definitely a surprise. From the same Berlanti/Liddell/Taylor team that brought us Everwood, comes this quite ingenious idea of showing two brothers (and a very determined mother) in present day, of which one will become the future President. Interspersed are interview sections from the year 2046, talking about a multitude of subjects concerning the President, and how he got there. While the outline is seems far fetched, the present day showings seem more grounded, hence enhancing the drama. How the dialogue and complicated character interaction evolve, makes Everwood look like a superficial drama. Also helping, is of course the outstanding acting of Christine Lahti’s mother character (Chicago Hope), and relatively newcomers Matt Long and Logan Lerman (The Butterfly Effect) as brothers. As a small family, it alsmost packs the same punch as a fellow bigger family first season series in trouble, Party of Five. But the higher educational topics (the mother is a college professor) combined with the political flash forwards, while making it all the more interesting, don’t bode well on the teen focused network, and I fear a slow death for a great series on its maiden voyage.

Rate 1 (FR#^&% MESS !) to 5 (how very tidy !). Only rate the latest picture, otherwise I can’t keep track of the average.

Total: 1192 out of 364 votes > Average is: 3.275

Julianne Moore/Anthony Edwards starrer The Forgotten didn’t stop people from remembering to see it, earning $22 million.
At number two, as expected, a significant drop for Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, with $6.7 million. Dropping along is Mr. 3000, this week’s third takes in $5 million.
The premiere of Forest Whitaker’s directed First Daughter takes in $4 million, tying it with third week Resident Evil: Apocalypse. Cellular is at nr. 5 with $3.7 million.