Faded Boxers

I’m just gonna run through this quickly because it’s getting late and I have a long day tomorrow. I also want to clear up all my blog backlog—a backblog if you will—before I post about Episode III:Revenge of the Sith in a few days.

Kingdom of Heaven
I thought Ridley Scott’s Kingdom of Heaven was better than his other period piece Gladiator; which isn’t saying much since I thought Gladiator sucked a lot of sweaty balls. The most apparent flaw I found with Gladiator was how the battle scenes were ineptly tied together by a series of scenes depicting a lot of meandering dialogue that do nothing to progress the story or develop the characters. All exposition could have easily been integrated in the battle scenes which could have cut the running time in half.

For Kingdom of Heaven, Scott did a turnaround in that he put more excitement in the buildup scenes rather than on the battle scenes. His inclination to rush through the battle scenes was a good move because he invariably fails to impress when photographing those epic sequences. He’s more successful with more intimate confrontation scenes as exhibited by Alien, and Blade Runner.

If Orlando Bloom has improved as an actor since the LOTR movies, I didn’t see it in this film. But it’s not entirely his fault since his character has as much depth as the paper the script was written on. It was great to see Jeremy Irons have fun again though.

In Good Company
During Topher Grace’s cameo in Ocean’s Twelve he had a line there that said “I totally phoned in that Dennis Quaid movie.” Obviously he was referring to In Good Company. If his performance in this film was “phoning it in,” then I’d really want to see what he does with a role that he really gets into. He attacks his character with a sensitivity and maturity that belies his tenure in the industry. The quality of his performance is no big surprise as he has been exhibiting his chops and impeccable comic timing in That ’70s Show for years.

Also, it must be a sign that I’m getting old that I find Marg Helgenberger more attractive than Scarlett Johansson. Overall, another good movie from the same guy who gave us the very enjoyable About a Boy. Unfortunately nothing about the movie stays with you after you leave the theater.

Shattered Glass
The last movie came as a total surprise not only because I wasn’t expecting it to be anything but a total waste of time, but it went on to prove just how bad George Lucas is as a director and a scriptwriter.

Yes, Hayden Christensen can act, and believe it or not, his performance had a lot to do with why this movie is so good. Based on true events, Shattered Glass tells the true story of Stephen Glass (Christensen), a writer for The New Republic magazine (don’t assume that I didn’t think of any New Republic-Old Republic jokes) who became infamous for making up or “cooking” almost half of his hard hitting articles.

While watching the movie, I couldn’t get over how much depth and sincerity Christensen was able to put in his character especially since his performance in Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones was second only to Jar Jar Binks in terms of suckage. Apparently it only takes a really good script to bring out the actor in him.

Kudos to the rest of the cast. With special emphasis on Hank Azaria, Steve Zahn, Peter Sarsgaard, and Melanie Lynskey. Easily my favorite among this week’s batch. Unfortunately it will probably be pulled out tomorrow to make way for Episode III.