Thursday

The Illusionist

This appeared in theatres around the same time as The Prestige and thus obvious comparisons are to be done, but apart from the magic theme, few parallels can be drawn between the two movies.

The Prestige is all about the rivalry between two magicians. The Illusionist is more of a love triangle and the jealousy of the the third wheel, the rich prince.

Where it was key to the story line in The Prestige to divulge the secrets of each magician, The Illusionist never divulged the magician's stage secrets, other than a small parlour trick shown to the detective played by Paul Giamatti.

A good movie though, well acted and a bit of suspense.

Will Traveler

The Traveler is ABC's latest new Summer drama. Typically I don't think shows starting mid season make it past the first few episodes.

But who knows, this latest conspiracy theory may provide enough intrigue to last. The question is whether it will follow in the errors of Lost and have too many questions with not enough answers.

With only two episodes aired it's too soon to say.

The premise of the show is three friends, Jay, Tyler and Will, having just graduated, go on a road trip before hitting the real world. They have been house mates for the past two years and developed a strong friendship during that time.

Their first stop is to have some fun in a New York museum. Jay and Tyler don rollerblades and glide through the museum as a prank with security guards giving chase. Will holds back to film the fun.

Once Jay and Tyler are free of the museum a bomb goes off. Will disappears, along with any trace that he even existed, and Jay and Tyler are prime suspects after being caught on film fleeing the museum just prior to the blast.

It seems that everyone is against them, even Tyler's rich father. And there's even hint of a conspiracy with Homeland Security part of the cover up.

Monday

Hogzilla's revenge

I'm not a big supporter of hunting, but I'm not that against it that I'd usually take a stance against it, but this is a bit over the top.

A giant hog, over 1000 pounds being chased through the woods and shot mercilessly multiple times with a pistol by an 11-year old. (The kid shot his first deer at 5! What lessons is he learning?)

Sure one can argue that if it's that big it's probably led a long, full life, but that doesn't justify it's end.

And to top it off, to get the giant hog out of the woods they had to chop down trees and bring in a backhoe to get it out. So not only was the animal shot multiple times, but the environment had to be disturbed and trees killed as well. So much for leave no trace mentality.

And this hog is supposedly larger than hogzilla, a large hog killed in 2004 and now the focus of a horror film being created. And to reward the kid for the most recent hog kill he's being given a small part in the upcoming movie.

Wednesday

Spiderman 3

I think the effects were the star of this movie. The first two were definitely a lot better.

This movie tried to do too much with the story line of who actually killed Ben Parker and the creation of the Sandman, plus Venom and the strained relationship between Peter Parker/Spiderman and Harry/New Goblin. Two (sic) many villains.

The Spiderman movies do one thing good over other superheroes movies and that's the ongoing character relationships and interaction.

However, I think the happy ending was a bit strained and seemed out of sync with the rest of the movie, almost like an add on at the end to make sure there weren't any loose ends.

Overall, it's a good movie though and definitely worth seeing in the theatre if just for the effects.

Thursday

"I'll be back"

The famous line uttered by Arnold Schwarzenegger's title character in the first Terminator movie. And he wasn't lying.

"The Terminator" was followed by two movies completing the trilogy.

The Halcyon Co. has acquired the franchise rights to the popular "The Terminator" movie series and intend to make a new trilogy.

However, there was a little white lie on behalf of Arnold as he won't be back for Terminator 4.

Tuesday

Pop can heater for the garage

A little pop can ingenuity and you've got a solar heater for the garage to take the chill off when you're out working on the old beater (or restoring a classic 'vette).