I have on my Palm a list of every movie I’ve seen in the theatres since 1997. When I looked at that entry recently, I realized the last movie I’d seen in the theatres was the Incredibles last November – saw it twice there. So I decided to look forward and see what I was planning on seeing, and compiled a list. Here it is, with a few remarks:
May 06 – The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. HHG is something I’ve known about for ages and ages. This was originally a radio series in England, then a series of books, and then some more radio episodes, some more books, etc.. There was a 6 episode TV series put out around 1981 in England, it’s been around for a long time. It was always planned to be a movie, but it never got off the ground. Until now. This is the story of a 6 foot tall ape descendant from the planet Earth. OK, that line is from the story, but in short, it’s the story of Arthur Dent, one of the two surviving humans from the destruction fo the earth, and his travels throughout the universe. It’s very British, very quirky, and very funny. Check out this book, it’s a compliation of the 5 novels in the “trilogy” (More of the author’s humour to have more than 3 books in a trilogy). It’s a good value too, getting all those books in one volume like that for $12.89 new.
May 19 – Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith. It’s Star Wars, do I really even need to do an intro for this? It’s the supposed last Star Wars movie. I’ve seen ’em all in the theatres, I’ll see this one, too. It’s supposed to be the best of the “new trilogy” of movies (which aren’t as god awful as a lot of people would have you believe). As much as I’d like to take my daugther to this so I can tell her she saw a Star Wars movie in the theatres, she’ll be too young for this.
May 27 – Madagascar. This is an animated movie about a bunch of animals that try and escape from their zoo. It’s from Dreamworks, who do OK work, but they still don’t compare to Pixar. But that’s for another time. At first I wasn’t planning on seeing this, but after watching the trailer a few times, I decided I was going to go. The penguins in the trailer made me laugh.
Jun 17 – Batman Begins. This is the “reboot” of the Batman movie franchise. It’s supposed to be a lot more “like the comic books” from what I can gather. That means nothing to me, as I never got involved with comic books. I’m 40, and my first invovlement with Batman was Adam West in the 60’s and 70’s. Then the movies. I’ll check this out, because I’ve seen all the other Batman movies. I know this won’t have anything to do with them, but I want to check it out. As a side note, this is the fifth Batman movie, and the fourth actor playing Batman! :)
Jun 29 – War of the Worlds. Steven Spielberg does Independence Day! This is based on HG Wells’ old War of the Worlds novel. I was intersted in seeing it anyway, as it’s got Spielberg and Tom Cruise in it. Tom Cruise I can take or leave, but I’m generally interested in what Spielberg does. Plus it looks like it’ll be a Summer testocerone blow things up kind of movie. Which seems odd, as that’s not generally what Spielberg does. We’ll see.
Aug 05 – The Dukes of Hazzard. When I was a kid, Dukes of Hazzard was required viewing. I watched it every Friday night with Dallas. I watched all of it, including the Coy & Vance year. So I’m mildly interested in watching the movie. I won’t be going into this theatre expecting greatness. But it does have some interesting casting. Burt Reylonds as Boss Hogg, and Willie Nelson as Uncle Jesse. And of course Jessica Simpson as Daisy Duke can’t hurt, either.
Oct 07 – The Curse of the Were-Rabbit starring Wallace & Gromit. The claymation Wallace & Gromit is something I’ve enjoyed for a long time. The writing is good, the humour is nice, and is just a good piece of family entertainment, something you don’t see a lot of these days. I wouldn’t miss this one. If you’ve never checked them out before, you should – this DVD has their previous animated adventures on it, all of which either won an Academy Award, or were nominated for such. The DVD is unfortunately out of print, but you should be able to find a copy at your local Blockbuster.
Oct 21 – Doom. This is based off the now 12 year old videogame Doom. I work in the games industry, so I’m curious to see how this will translate. Generally, game movies have stunk up the joint, and I don’t hold out a lot of hope for this either (I mean it stars the Rock – how great can it be with him in it?). But I’ll still go – and probably be underwhelmed.
Sep 04 – The Legend of Zorro. This is a sequel to the 1998 Mask of Zorro. I rather enjoyed the 1998 film, and this has the same two leads in it (Banderas & Zeta-Jones). I’m looking forward to it. I also like the director, Martin Campbell, who did the 1995 007 movie, Goldeneye.
Nov 18 – Harry Potter & The Goblet of Fire. Actually, I have no interest in seeing this movie, but my wife does, so I put it here. :)
There are a few more coming out in 2005 that I’m interested in, but not enough to see in the theatres, I’ll rent ’em when they come out. These are: Son of Mask (Feb 18 – looks horrid, but I want to see it in a train wreck sort of way), Bewitched (Jul 8 – On second thought, it has Shirley McLaine in it, which is enough to make me run screaming, perhaps I won’t see it), and Charlie & the Chocolate Factory (Jul 15 – I saw the original as a kid, and liked it, but I can’t tolerate it as an adult. I’m curious about a remake).
There’s also a few more further out that I know I’m definitely interested in..
Jun 9, 2006 – Cars. This is the next movie from the Gods at Pixar. These guys are brilliant, and everything they’ve put out has been specatuclar. I expect no less with this one. It’s also the first movie directed by head Pixar guy, John Lasseter, the guy behind the Toy Story movies.
Nov 21, 2006 – Casino Royale. The next 007 movie. Will likely have the next 007 in it, as well. I’ve been a major James Bond fan for a really long time – I’ve seen everything in the theatres since 1981’s “For Your Eyes Only”, which makes 10 Bond flicks. Who will play 007 remains to be seen, but whoever it is, I’ll be there.
May 4, 2007 – Spiderman 3. I enjoyed Spiderman. I enjoyed Spiderman 2 even more, I felt the sequel was better than the original. I’ll be there for #3 as well.
Summer 2007 – Ratatouille. This is the next Pixar movie after Cars. I don’t know much about it, except it involves a rat. That’s about it. But it’s Pixar, so I’ll be there with bells on.
That’s about it for now. I’m sure there will be more, as I just went down a list of release dates at IMDB, plus there’s other things that sneak up on me, but this is my planned list for now.

A few things were formally announced with James Bond today..
1) Pierce Brosnan is out for good. There’s been a lot of ping-ponging about whether he was in or out, but this was the first time that EON (the people who make the 007 movies) have ever said anything about it, and they said he’s out. Plus there was an announcement on Brosnan’s site about it being over too, so he’s gone.
2) The director of the movie is Martin Campbell – who has already directed one 007 movie before, that being 1995’s Goldeneye.
3) The movie name will be Casino Royale. For years and years, Casino Royale was the one remaining movie that they never used from the old stable of Ian Fleming novels / short stories. The rights lied elsewhere, and a few years back when Sony was attempting to start their own chain of 007 movies based on some really ancient remake rights that belonged to Kevin McClory and the Casino Royale rights; that stuff was all settled in favor of EON, and EON gained legal and distribution rights to Casino Royale, as well as the other unofficial 007 movie “Never Say Never Again”.
Other James Bond Thoughts of mine:
This brings up the really obvious question, who will be the next 007? No one really knows for sure, and there’s a gajillion names being thrown around. Of the ones I’ve seen, I’d like either Ewan McGregor, or an actor who REALLY looks the part – Gerard Butler. When Pierce Brosnan took over in 1994, Timothy Dalton was still officially 007, as there was a 5 year break between License to Kill and Goldeneye. I remember when Dalton was announced as being out I was really annoyed – I did not want to like Brosnan, because I REALLY liked Dalton’s portrayal. But Brosnan grew on me, and I ended up really liking him – to the point where I thought Die Another Day was an awesome movie. I really loved it.
So we’re back to a new Bond with a story that should have been made ages ago. Granted, the real novel of Casino Royale is pretty minimalistic, as are a lot of the Fleming novels – if you’ve ever actually read any of them the spectacle that is a James Bond movie isn’t there. I’ll be real curious to see how much of the novel is on the screen. For example, the 1979 movie Moonraker had only the villian’s name from the novel (Hugo Drax), and that’s about IT. So the precendent is there for them to totally ignore the story and just use the name. However, I’ve been reading press saying that the producers want to take Bond back to the beginning to what made it good early on, so hopefully it won’t be butchered to death – although some editing is inevitable.
Link:
http://www.commanderbond.net/Public/Stories/2656-1.shtml
For no reason other than me wanting to talk about it, here’s some further background information on Never Say Never Again, Kevin McClory, and remakes…

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This gives away absolutely nothing about the movie. I just got back from seeing it (I went to an 11:45PM showing).
HOLY CRAP – This was one awesome movie. I cannot say how much I loved this flick. It is by far and away the best of the three for me – no comparison.
I’ll have more to say after I’ve had a chance to digest it, and that will probably take another viewing. This is one heavy, deep, complex movie.
It also helps that I did not watch any of the trailers. I just watched the trailer now that I’ve seen the movie, and I’m glad I didn’t. In my opinion, the trailer gives away too much of the coolness of this movie.

My wife and I got our first DVD player back around the Holiday season of 1998. We’ve been enamoured with the format ever since, and we’ve watched “the general public” become more crazed with the format since. However, in all the years we’ve had one (this’ll be our 5th year, 6th holiday season) I don’t think I’ve seen such a crowded holiday release schedule of DVD releases as I have this season. Check out this list of what’s being released on DVD this coming fall that I intend on getting..

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I went to see Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines over the weekend. I, like most folks hold Terminator 2: Judgement Day up as one of the greatest action movies ever. That still holds up today, as I watched T2 the night before going to see T3. T2 is still great. I was surprised at how well it held up.
And that feeling left me with some trepidation as to how T3 would play out. No James Cameron. No Linda Hamilton. What kind of Terminator movie would it be without Sarah Connor? Well, guess what? It can be one kick ass action flick!
I was utterly shocked at how much I liked this movie. I thought it was going to be bad, and was extremely surprised at how well done it was. Were there plot holes? Of course – it’s not like this is the greatest, most well written movie of all time. It’s a testoscerone laden explosion fest. And it worked. I’m not going to spoil anything for folks reading this who haven’t read the movie. But all I’ll say is this. The movie ends so wide open for a T4, it’s not funny. And, if we get a T4 based on what happened at the end of this movie… it won’t be a stupid added on sequel, either. It will be a great movie in it’s own right, which is unusal for a sequel, especially one with a 4 in it.
If you have seen the movie, then you owe it to yourself to read this review of the movie by Steve Krutzler of TrekWeb. In it he makes the movie out to be the greatest movie of all time. I wouldn’t go quite that far, but it was a great movie, and one I intend on buying on DVD when it’s released. I wasn’t planning on doing that beforehand, but then I thought it was going to be crap, too, and it wasn’t. Anyway, Steve’s review is pretty long, but he goes into length as to why we could get a T4, T5, & T6 and it would all make sense.
About the only truly negative thing I could say, and I admit it’s a nitpick is that there was no cool “Terminator music” in the opening credits. I would have loved to have seen that. I’ll be curious to see if a director’s commentary on the DVD talks about that.
Do yourself a favor. Go see it. Don’t let it leave the theatres – this is a “big” movie, and deserves to be seen in the theatres.