What's Playing the week of July 27, 2007

It only took HBO and Disneyland to turn Mighty Mo from the Power Rangers to Star Wars. This years new Power Rangers, Operation Overdrive, is a bit of a disappointment, and has not kept his attention like earlier seasons like Dino Thunder, Mystic Force and SPD.

HBO began running the second trilogy in early summer and Mo very much got into the Bad Skywalker and Lord Vader, pronounced with a heavy B for Bader. At Disneyland we took a trip on Star Tours and were funnelled out into the Star Wars gift shop and for 30% more than what I would have spent at Walmart, Mo had plenty of new toys. A trip to Target to pick up the original trilogy for the driving around southern California, and Mo his sucked in.

We dipped back into disney for the home viewing to see Pete's Dragon, which he felt was okay, liking the boy to the dragon and tolerating the musical numbers.

Also he has been very interested in Justice League which plays nightly on cable. We use DVR and watch a couple episodes at a time as they run commercial free.

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix aka HP5

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix was a book I had read a few years ago. I own all the other books and movies to date and wanted to see how David Yates, a director I had never watched, would bring a group I cared so much about to the screen in the darkest of the movies to date.

While I will always have a deep affinity for the first movie, I have the same issue with Lord of the Rings, (Fellowship is my favorite) HP5 is a super strong outing for franchise.

The plot is that while Dumbledore and Harry believe Voldermort is alive and plotting the death of all, the Ministry of Magic is deliberately hiding their heads in the sand and overtly keeping all insistence to the contrary out of the news. This enables The Death Eaters, Voldermorts Army, to carry out their masters wishes unopposed.

To counter this Dumbledore starts the Order of the Phoenix, a small group dedicated to fighting and gathering information against Voldermort in society and Harry begins Dumbledores Army at Hogwarts teaching students how to fight against the Dark Arts.

The acting is again top notch by all characters and especially Daniel Radcliffe who is maturing nicely with Potter. Chris Columbus who directed the first two movies should get some sort of oscar for his innate ability to cast actors that will last for seven movie and ten year. Even the older cast playing teachers look amazingly well.

It is unavoidable to miss this movie in some medium or another over the next few years. Take the plunge and see it in the theaters while you can.

Transformers:The Movie

I don't remember the 80's television show or the Hasbro toys. I rented a DVD that was obviously current release and it didn't convey to me the fascination with this genre. That being said I waited for a few weeks to see this.

The word on the street was this was not a very good movie, with too much going on. While that is certainly the case, I found this to be a fine summer blockbuster that holds up to anything else Michael Bay has directed or produced recently.

The plot revolves around an object called The Cube or All Spark. This has the power to turn mechanical objects into sentient beings. The Autobots are here to protect humans and keep their enemy the Decepticons from using it for evil ends. The twist is that the government has both the All Spark and the leader of the Decepticons in their possession without knowing what they are.

The secondary plot follows Sam Witwicky, a bum luck teen played smartly by Shia LaBeouf. His first car is the Autobot Bumblebee and conveniently enough Sam has a way to find the All Spark. The other humans rounding out the lead cast are Megan Fox who is absolutely beautiful on screen, Josh Duhamel whom I suppose the ladies will think the same as men do of Fox and John Voight. Comic relief is brought by Anthony Anderson, Kevin Dunn and John Turturro.

The action moves quite fast and as humaniod shapes the transformers are hard to follow as they look so much a like. In the end it is best to follow the direction of the ammo being thrown at them by the military. And Bay once again does a great job representing the military. Much like Armageddon and The Rock, Bay turns up the stirring music and puts the lead down range. The scenes are intense and passionate. Bay cuts the right form of action, sound and explosions to keep the tempo and realism up and the reminder we are in a Global War on Terror down.

In the end you can't help but be mesmerized by the shapes taken by the transformers, especially the character of Bumblebee who becomes the 2009 Chevy Camero. I am sure many men sitting in the theater tried to justify the purchase of one of these when they come out within the next year. Myself included.

Ultimately a fine summer movie. The DVD I hope will have some great background on the original cartoon and making of.

Crossing Over to the Dark Side

It took CineMax running the epic Star Wars double trilogy and Disneyland's Star Tours to turn Mighty Mo from a Power Ranger to a minion of the dark side.

Mo is now, at least this week, all about the light saber and Lord Vader. He kept wanting to go back to the Jedi Academy at Tomorrow Land to watch the Star Wars show. I crossed my fingers that he would not be chosen as a Youngling to fight Vader as he and I fight with swords at home and I was afraid that instead of the choreographed moves he was supposed to do with Darth Vader he would do two things:

1) Bum rush Vader and swing like a barbarian like he and I do at home.
2) Pledge his allegance to the dark side and become the first jedi Youngling to become Vaders apprentice at Disneyland.

Now we have a collection of light sabers for he and I to use, and a couple of action figures to play with.

No new releases for me recently but will post some DVD titles soon.