Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon (2006)

For those who love the slasher classics (Friday the 13th, Halloween, so on), this film is a riot. The premise is a grad school film crew are following a guy who plans on being a new slasher legend. It is immensely entertaining, quirky, and quite funny in parts. There aren't a whole lot of surprises and the acting isn't the greatest, but I enjoyed this movie more than I expected. It's a little bit Scream and a little bit Blair Witch Project and a whole heap of fun.

Death of a President (2006)

Death of a President

This is a fascinating exercise in "What if". It takes the frightening premise of "What if George W. Bush was assassinated?" The film is done in documentary style (high class documentary). It asks a lot of interesting questions about what we think as a nation and where we could so easily be headed. It is well put together and the acting is good. It is wonderful piece of imagination and a warning to American people. It is worth a watch, but honestly I found it less moving than I thought it could be.

The Breed (2006)

The Breed

The Good:
Holy crap, real dogs! I know that is the whole premise of the film, but what I mean to say is, these were real dogs not CGI.
It is in modern monster movie format, I guess specifically you would call this a "creature feature", seeing as how the whole draw is the genetically manipulated dogs... wait is that a good thing?
The characters actions weren't entirely stupid.

The Bad:
One character, Lost's Michelle Rodriguez, gets an arrow through the leg and then went on to do like gymnastics ten minutes later.
The beginning was terrible, like foreshadowing for idiots, or just bad scripting.
The very end was terrible.
Don't expect any real exposition (here, I'll give it to you: There are genetically engineered dogs the army made on this island, period.)

Overall: Wes Craven, have you just gotten lazy? Shame on you, shame. I think he'll produce anything now. This movie is at best a mediocre modern style horror and at worst a complete waste of time. Oh course it was this director's first film behind the wheel solo.

The Brothers Grimm (2005)

Brothers Grimm

The Good:
Some of the shots were amazing, the camera movements were very cool.
Anything with Monica Bellucci is alright with me.
The acting was ok, if a little melodramatic.

The Bad:
I found the film really predictable every step of the way.
It didn't seem as "inspired" as most of Gilliam's movies, I am a huge fan most of the time.
The "fairy tale" parts were cliched at best.
It felt very long.

Overall: Not Gilliam's best movie at all. It is maybe a 28% The Adventures of Baron Munchausen or maybe a 7% The Fisher King.

Knocked Up (2007)

Knocked Up

The Good:
A number of parts were genuinely funny.
The film was "sweet".
I loved the cast, most are from Freaks and Geeks (awesome show - you should rent it now!) - Seth Rogen was great and I always enjoy Martin Starr. Also excellent in the cast was Paul Rudd, Leslie Mann and Harold Ramis.
Much of the film felt quite real, like the potheads doing "nothing" very slowly only to find out their entire enterprise was useless.

The Bad:
Though it seemed a lot like a Freaks and Geeks episode, it didn't have the depth to it like the show did (of course that's 2 hours versus a season).
It was predictable from beginning to end.

Overall: I enjoyed it a lot more than the average romantic comedy. It's decent but you can wait for the video, the big screen doesn't really add anything.