Summer of George

Ever since I left my cushy East Harlem middle school teaching gig, I've been deprived of one of life'sgreat joys: the lazy summer. It's one of those things we're expected to give up by the time we reach adulthood. Sure, we've still got weekends, maybe even Summer Fridays. But unlike some of the more ambitious and motivated people out there who can't stand being inactive for more than 10 minutes, I crave multi-hour blocks (if not multi-day blocks) of unadulterated laziness. My only goals involve the number of times I'll have to re-watch Pulp Fiction before I've memorized every line, or the number of BCS championships I'm going to win in NCAA Football 10 before I have to return it to Blockbuster.

In other words, I take lazy summer to its illogical extremes.

Though I haven't had 2 months of inactivity to fill, I have enjoyed a relatively "Summer of George"-esque week. What do I have to show for it?

• The International is a must-rent DVD. I loved Clive Owen as the badass mo' fo' in Children of Men and Shoot 'Em Up!, and he brings that same attitude to this well crafted political thriller. Three words to sum it up: AWESOME. MUSEUM. SCENE. 2.5 PB Jars
  
  
• Interview with the Vampire doesn't hold a candle to more recent pop-culture vampire incarnations. This was my first time seeing the 1994 Tom Cruise/Brad Pitt novel adaptation, and I was hoping for more (especially given Entertainment Weekly's recent ranking of Lestat as the #1 greatest vampire). Cruise and Pitt both provide good performances if you've never seen the film -- and it's funny to watch Kirsten Dunst "vamp" it up -- but HBO's "True Blood" cast puts Lestat and company to shame. 1.5 PB Jars
  
  
• Return of the King's additional content is well worth the extra 40 minutes of your life. As shocking as that might sound, given that the running time of the theatrical cut is over 3 hours, I thought several of the deleted scenes were spectacular. My favorite: the confrontation between Aragorn and a monstrous (perhaps "Guellermo Del Torovian") envoy of Sauron outside the gates of Mordor. 3 PB Jars
  
  
• Speaking of fantasy epics, Willow is still great fun. This 1988 Ron Howard/George Lucas film was one of the defining movies of my childhood and holds up surprisingly well. The first 40 minutes are a great mix of humor, action, sentimentality, and even horror (the dog attack). One of Val Kilmer's best roles, IMHO. Watch the making-of featurette to learn that Willow also played an Ewok in Return of the Jedi (shocker) and see Ron Howard rock the Cosby sweater/goofy mustache combo. 2 PB Jars
  
  
• Push is a new-release DVD that had some things going for it. For a rather played-out concept (individuals with super powers band together against evil g-men), it felt fresh with Fantastic 4's Chris Evans and teenaged Dakota Fanning running the show. Neither of them is a great actor, but they play well off each other. Granted, Push feels like a Jumper re-tread (just substitute Evans's reluctant hero for Hayden Christensen's, and Djimon Honsou dogged pursuer for Samuel L. Jackson's), but it's a decent DVD popcorn flick nonetheless. 1.5 PB Jars
  
  
• I FINALLY saw The Hangover after weeks of hearing the buzz. It didn't live up to my elevated expectations but it provided many laughs. I don't know how I feel about Todd Phillips recycling the same comedy screenplay formula; we've seen these characters and this plot structure in Old School and elsewhere. But what's a lazy summer without a heaping portion of juvenile humor? 1.5 PB Jars

New Year's Resolution: Watch More DVDs

...if for no other reason than to justify my $20/month Blockbuster Online subscription. It'll be tough to do now that TV's "second season" is revving up (Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles premieres a week from Sunday). American Idol be damned - here are some rentals to consider:

The Bourne Ultimatum - Paul Greengrass is a geinus. That's right - the guy who wrote that United 93 was overrated is calling Paul Greengrass a genius. He's got to be considered the top action director in Hollywood right now on the strength of his two Bourne sequels. I haven't decided whether I like Ultimatum more than Supremacy, which had one of the best car chase sequences of all time. The Manhattan car chase in Ultimatum doesn't match Supremacy's climactic Moscow tunnel sequence, but Ultimatum is superior in other ways. For one thing, I like how there are multiple assassins who duel with Bourne. Plus, there's that amazing great running-on-rooftops/jumping-through-windows/kicking-ass sequence. The final revelation about Bourne's identity isn't as earth-shattering as I had expected, but I'd still give this movie an exemplary 2.5 PB Jars.

The Kingdom - I didn't really buy the team chemistry when Jamie Foxx, Jennifer Garner, Jason Bateman, and Chris Cooper investigate a terrorist attack in Saudi Arabia. However, I let that slide because I was sucked into the story by the midway point. Sometimes movies feel too current and too political to be entertaining, but The Kingdom walks that fine line pretty successfully. Arrested Development fans, be prepared to see your boy get his ass handed to him by some Saudi extremists. 2.0 PB Jars

Failure to Launch - Scoff if you want, but this was a light-heartedly hilarious movie. The cast is very likable (with the possible exception of Sarah Jessica Parker, though she was aight). Best scene: The Daily Show's Rob Cordry plays a sheepish gun salesman. His performance, though brief, is an instant classic. 2.0 PB Jars

Rescue Dawn - This movie sucked. Critics who gushed about this movie should be ashamed. I'm not gonna give it a 0.0 rating or anything, probably because I have man-love for Christian Bale and can't bear the thought. Still, this movie sucked. It was boring. It felt like a re-make of other Vietnam movies. Part of the problem is that it's based on one guy's memoir (a German immigrant who joined the U.S. Navy during Vietnam), and you can tell that the guy did everything possible to make himself look like a hero in the story. I'm not saying that surviving in a Viet Cong prison camp was easy; it just wasn't very interesting in this case. Steve Zahn was pretty worthless as the second lead actor. I can't recommend this movie in good conscience, unless you really admire Christian Bale's method acting and want to see him drop some LB's like he did for The Machinist. 0.5 PB Jar

Batman Begins - After seeing the 6-minute prologue for The Dark Knight during the I Am Legend IMAX previews, I was pumped to re-watch Begins. It's even more enjoyable the second time around. I still think the movie is a little on the long side, but otherwise it's a flawless comic book adaptation. Not that I'm going to miss Katie Holmes, who bows out of the series in favor of Maggie Gyllenhall in Dark Knight. 3 PB Jars

The Lord of the Rings Trilogy - I endeavored to watch it straight through during Christmas week, but it proved impossible to find a 10-hour block of uninterrupted time. Nevertheless, I'd highly recommend watching the three movies on back-to-back-to-back days. They really do play like three chapters of one giant movie. Having never read the Tolkien books, I understood the story and characters much better this time around. And as epic trilogies go, LOTR rivals The Godfather and Star Wars - and in my opinion, surpasses them both. 3 PB Jars