Becky and I went to see “The Sentinel” last week. The Fandango website at The Sentinel describes the movie as follows:

Pete Garrison is the most decorated agent in the history of the Secret Service – the President’s last line of defense. But now, wrongly suspected of targeting the president for assassination, Garrison has become the Service’s worst nightmare. As he uses his formidable skills to try and prove his innocence and find the real assassin, Garrison is tracked by his equally adept former protegee.

The Review
Michael Douglas, Kiefer Sutherland, Kim Basinger and Eva Longoria star in this film about the Secret Service and The White House. The acting is very good, but the story is really far fetched. Supposedly the man in charge of protecting the world’s most protected woman is having an affair with her. I had flashbacks to the movie “Bodyguard” with Kevin Costner and Whitney Houston. While he’s deep in his affair, he suddenly becomes the key suspect in a plot to assisinate her husband, while his primary job is protecting him.

The movie has a great deal of action and a bit of suspense, but I didn’t find it as good as some of the television episodes of “CSI” or “24”. The situational problems with the film didn’t bother Becky as much as they did me and she liked it more than I did. There are times in the film when you can’t decide if he’s a good agent or a bad agent and we could have used the good witch from the Wizard of Oz to sort it out for us. We may have found out that he wasn’t a Secret Sevice agent at all or he could have retired earlier than the end of the movie.

It wasn’t a really bad thriller, but it wasn’t very good either. I don’t think it was as good as “Inside Man”, which would be my recommendation over this one. Becky would agree.

John – ** Rental
Becky – *** Worth The Trip
_________________________________________________________________________
Auto Broker – John Boyd “The Cool Car Guy”
John is an automotive consultant with Centennial Leasing & Sales in Denver, Colorado. He can help you save time and money on any make or model, new or used, lease or purchase – nationwide!
Call or email John about your next vehicle!
jboyd@coolcarguy.com

Becky and I went to see “Thank You For Smoking” this Weekend at the AMC theater in Highlands Ranch. The Fandango website at Thank You For Smoking describes the movie as follows:

Writer-director Jason Reitman skewers the smoking industry with this satirical take on Big Tobacco’s politics. Aaron Eckhart stars as Nick Naylor, the chief spokesman for the business. While doing his best to make smoking ‘cool’ for the masses, Nick also attempts to be a role model for his 12-year-old son.

The Review
It’s been a while since we’ve seen a totally original comedy and “Thank You For Smoking” definitely hit the mark. Regardless of where you fall on the political spectrum, you should find this flick to be witty and fun.

The hero of the film is a self serving lobbyist for the tobacco industry. Becky pointed out there there isn’t one person who lights up a cigarette during the entire movie, which was ironic given the title of the film and what it was about.

The acting was very good with a quality cast of stars and the personalities are hilarious, including the Hollywood agent played by Rob Lowe. The dialogue in the movie is fantastic, even if it’s cynical and dark most of the time. You can’t help but laugh at the cast of characters and how self-centered, coniving and ruthless they are. We don’t want to give away much of the film. It’s rated R for language and some sexual content, so be forwarned that some people may find a few parts offensive.

I liked it enough that I don’t think you should miss it because the overall message of the movie is very good given all the spin that takes place on both sides of the political fence. Becky liked it too and thought it was Worth The Trip.

John – **** Don’t Miss It
Becky – *** Worth The Trip
_________________________________________________________________________
Auto Broker – John Boyd “The Cool Car Guy”
John is an automotive consultant with Centennial Leasing & Sales in Denver, Colorado. He can help you save time and money on any make or model, new or used, lease or purchase – nationwide!
Call or email John about your next vehicle!
jboyd@coolcarguy.com

Becky and I took the kids to see the new animated movie, The Wild on Saturday. The MovieFone website at The Wild describes the movie as follows:

In this wild and outrageous computer-animated comedy-adventure, an odd assortment of animals from the New York Zoo -– including a lion (Keifer Sutherland), a giraffe (Janeane Garofalo), an anaconda (Richard Kind), a koala (Eddie Izzard) and a squirrel(Jim Belushi) -– discover what a jungle the city can be when one of their own is mistakenly shipped to the wild and they embark on a dangerous mission to rescue him.

The Review
Hollywood has found that parents will take their kids to just about any animated movie and kids just like cartoons. Becky and I didn’t think there was anything original about this film. It was like “The Lion King” meets “Madagascar” and it was about half as good as either one of them.

The animation was good, but the story was pretty weak and so much of it made very little sense. Of course, our kids liked it because kids love cartoons regardless of the content, as every parent has discovered with Pokemon. However, our four-year old daughter Bianca absolutely loved this movie and it was rated G. It’s definitely a kid’s movie and there wasn’t much for parents or older children.

If you’re going to take your kids to the movies, go to Ice Age: The Meltdown before this one. There are more animated films on the horizon for families to take their kids too. We’ll keep you posted.

John – ** Rental
Becky – * Don’t Bother

The Kids Review
Corban – *** Worth The Trip
Bianca – **** Don’t Miss It
Conroy – *** Worth The Trip
_________________________________________________________________________
Auto Broker – John Boyd “The Cool Car Guy”
John is an automotive consultant with Centennial Leasing & Sales in Denver, Colorado. He can help you save time and money on any make or model, new or used, lease or purchase – nationwide!
Call or email John about your next vehicle!
jboyd@coolcarguy.com

Becky and I went to see “Stay Alive” this Weekend at the AMC theater in Highlands Ranch. The Fandango website at Stay Alive describes the movie as follows:

After the mysterious brutal death of an old friend, a group of teenagers find themselves in possession of Stay Alive, a next generation horror survival videogame based on the spine-chilling true story of a 17th century noblewoman known as “The Blood Countess.” The gamers don’t know anything about the game other than they’re not supposed to have it…and they’re dying to play it. Not able to resist temptation, the group begins to play the grisly game and soon a chilling connection is made – they are each being murdered one-by-one in the same method as the character they played in the game. As the line between the game world and the real world disappears, the group must find a way to defeat the vicious and merciless Blood Countess, all the while trying to stay alive.

The Review
Stay Alive is rated PG-13 and is similar to the movie’s “Scream” and “The Ring” in that it has a spooky storyline and a number of frightening situations that the characters find themselves. It’s not a super gruesome film, which we both appreciated, but parts of it are hard to follow and made little sense. I jumped a couple of times.

The story was kind of cool, except that you never find out how the original video game came into being in the first place to start wiping out its players. There are a few hints toward the end, but it might have helped had they made an attempt to show how it all started.

The ending was lame in that they knocked off the movie The Ring with a continuation of new people playing the game. However, there wasn’t any room for the story to continue based on a series of events that took place throughout the film.

There are very few horror films that are really good and this is no exception. It was better than some of them that we’ve both seen, but certainly not worth the price of admission.

Our advice is to wait for the Rental.

John – ** Rental
Becky – ** Rental
_________________________________________________________________________
Auto Broker – John Boyd “The Cool Car Guy”
John is an automotive consultant with Centennial Leasing & Sales in Denver, Colorado. He can help you save time and money on any make or model, new or used, lease or purchase – nationwide!
Call or email John about your next vehicle!
jboyd@coolcarguy.com

Becky and I decided to watch the new ABC and Hallmark Entertainment presentation of The Ten Commandments over the past two nights with our kids.

It’s extremely rare for me to take the time to rate a made for television movie, but since there was so much fanfare surrounding how great this remake was going to be, and how it would be better than Cecil B Demille’s original motion picture, with superstars Charton Heston, Yul Brynner, Edward G. Robinson, Vincent Price and John Carradine, I had to give my two cents.

The ABC website at The Ten Commandments describes the movie as follows:

“This is the story of Moses — one of the most revered figures in our world’s religions — the man who rose in power to defend a people, to free them and to live in history like no other…”

The Review
As a Christian, I couldn’t believe how pathetic this new make believe rendition of the supernatural story of Moses was. If I were a Orthodox Jew I would be ticked off and offended. This film was so filled with errors of what happened according to the Bible that it was absurd.

The first night’s showing, of this two part “epic” special, was better than the second night, but not by much. I called a Pastor friend of mine and asked if he was watching it. He said that when he saw the Nile River turn to what looked like “KoolAid” he turned it off.

The special effects didn’t bother me as much as the liberties that were taken with God’s Word. They actually had Moses tell a famous joke as part of his lesson plan to Joshua to help define the character of God to the viewing audience. Get real! How incredibly stupid can you get? I just sat there stunned in disbelief. It was as though someone had tuned into a late night televangelist, “trying to learn about them Christian folk”, and heard him tell a joke and decided to add it to the script of the television special as a teaching of Moses. I was amazed.

The whole message of the Hebrews being miraculously delivered from the Egyptians according to God’s design and going into the Promised Land was pretty much lost in this latest film. After all the miracles that God performed for the Hebrews, Moses ended up with a message that “God helps those who helps themselves”. Which by the way, you won’t find anywhere in the Bible. A good website to visit for some additional information on God’s plan for Moses and his people is GraceThruFaith.com.

Now back to the review of this movie: It was so bad at times that our eight year old son kept saying, “Dad, that didn’t happen and that didn’t happen, did it?” It was embarrasing how many liberties they took with this remake. Several times I wanted to shut it off, but our kids wanted to watch it and I figured I would let them since they were at least learning something about the story. Maybe we should lend our eight year old as a historical consultant for these filmmakers who keep trying to reach the Christian demographic. Ever since the success of powerful movies like “The Passion of the Christ” and “Narnia”, Hollywood has been jumping on the Bible bandwagon.

As hokey as the special effects are in the original “Ten Commandments” with Charlton Heston, the famous Director at least made God out to be the powerful and wise God of the Hebrews. Even in 1956, they had enough sense to read the parts of the Bible where God was involved in delivering, protecting and judging His people and tried to give a more accurate Biblical account of the story.

In the original film Moses is portrayed as a man of God with power and authority. In this new version you would swear that Moses needed to see a pyschiatrist as God came in and out of his head. In this movie, Moses went around lost in the desert hoping to hear from the disappearing God that delivered His people from the Egyptians only to leave them to their own devises. This is hardly the reality.

According to the Bible, God never left or forsook Moses or the children of Israel, nor does He ever forsake His people. The fact is that He guided their every step in the wilderness and into the Promised Land even when they complained and rebelled against Him. In Exodus 33:11 we are told the kind of relationship that God had with Moses “And Jehovah spoke with Moses face to face, as a man speaks with his friend. “That is hardly a relationship, like this movie presented, where Moses walked around like a drunk on the street wondering if he would ever hear God’s voice again. You may also want to read Numbers 12 and see how God protected Moses from anyone who spoke against him. When you spoke against Moses you might as well have been speaking against God Himself.

In conclusion, we’ll be introducing our kids to the “original” Ten Commandments on Saturday Night as we celebrate The Passover together. Our advice is to skip ABC’s rewriting of God’s word, read the story for yourself, you can find it in the book of Exodus and don’t be easily influenced by Hollywood’s versions.

Of course, you’ll also want to add to your reading of the Old Testament the Gospels to discover how Jesus became the Passover “Lamb of God” who took away the sins of the world. You’ll learn how He was crucified, died and rose again from the dead on the third day according to the Old Testament scriptures and is seated at the right hand of Almighty God. What a great way to celebrate The Passover and the Resurrection.

As far as The Hallmark Entertainment / ABC Ten Commandments remake goes…

John – * Don’t Bother
Becky – * Don’t Bother
_________________________________________________________________________
Auto Broker – John Boyd “The Cool Car Guy”
John is an automotive consultant with Centennial Leasing & Sales in Denver, Colorado. He can help you save time and money on any make or model, new or used, lease or purchase – nationwide!
Call or email John about your next vehicle!
jboyd@coolcarguy.com

Becky and I went to see “Lucky Number Slevin” on Friday night at the Regal Cinema theater by Park Meadows Mall. The Fandango website at Lucky Number Slevin describes the movie as follows:

A case of mistaken identity puts a man named Slevin (Josh Hartnett) in the middle of a war between two rival New York crime lords: The Rabbi (Ben Kingsley) and the Boss (Morgan Freeman). While under the watchful eyes of Detective Brikowski (Stanley Tucci) and well-known assassin Goodkat (Bruce Willis), Slevin must quickly devise a plan to save his skin before his luck runs out.

The Review
A friend of mine John and his wife happened to be at the same showing on Friday night. After the movie, I asked them what they thought about the film. John’s comment pretty much summed up this movie when he said, “It wasn’t worth the $9 I paid to see it.” Becky and I totally agreed with him.

I liked it more than Becky did, but not by much. The way the story all tied together was pretty cool, but beyond that it was just another overly violent trip into the crazy world of Hollywood make believe. For as many great actors as they had in the film, all of which did a fine job in their roles, you would think it would have been a better movie. Unfortunately, it didn’t live up to the previews.

Our advice on this one is to wait for the Rental and save your money for a better movie at the box office. Becky doesn’t think you should waste your money on either.

John – ** Rental
Becky – * Don’t Bother
_________________________________________________________________________
Auto Broker – John Boyd “The Cool Car Guy”
John is an automotive consultant with Centennial Leasing & Sales in Denver, Colorado. He can help you save time and money on any make or model, new or used, lease or purchase – nationwide!
Call or email John about your next vehicle!
jboyd@coolcarguy.com

Becky and I took the kids to see “Ice Age: The Meltdown” on Saturday night in a packed AMC theater in Highlands Ranch. The Yahoo movie website at Ice Age Meltdown describes the movie as follows:

“The Ice Age is coming to an end, and the animals are delighting in the melting paradise that is their new world. Manny, Sid, and Diego quickly learn that the warming climate has one major drawback: a huge glacial dam is about to break, threatening the entire valley. The only chance of survival lies at the other end of the valley. So the three heroes, along with a mammoth named Ellie and her two “brothers…”

The Review
We all liked this film as much as the first one. It has a great storyline and a bunch of fun new characters. The kids loved it and found it to be a blast. We liked it too with loads of animated fun. There was a great deal of adult humor and a few instances where the dialogue got a little too adult, but it went over the kid’s heads.

As screwed up as Hollywood is, they are putting out some great movies to bring the kids for a day or night out on the town. That crazy character Scrat, a strange little creature trying to get an acorn, is a riot.

This is a film you will definitely want to take the kids to for a really good time.

John – *** Worth The Trip
Becky – *** Worth The Trip

The Kids Review
Corban – **** Don’t Miss It
Bianca – **** Don’t Miss It
Conroy – **** Don’t Miss It
_________________________________________________________________________
Auto Broker – John Boyd “The Cool Car Guy”
John is an automotive consultant with Centennial Leasing & Sales in Denver, Colorado. He can help you save time and money on any make or model, new or used, lease or purchase – nationwide!
Call or email John about your next vehicle!
jboyd@coolcarguy.com

Becky and I went to see “Basic Instinct 2” on Friday night with about 8 other people who were in the entire theater. The Fandango website at Basic Instinct 2 describes the movie as follows:

“Sharon Stone reprises her role as Catherine Tramell, this time finding herself on the wrong side of the law while living in London. A criminal psychologist is assigned to evaluate her, and he is quickly drawn into her mysterious and sexy spell.”

The Review
If you liked the original Basic Instinct then you will probably like this film, but it’s over the top sexually explicit and pornagraphic. The story was actually pretty wild and interesting. The story definitely kept our interest, but the language, violence and perversion of the film was a total distraction to the point that it wrecked the thriller.

It was too much like a raunchy cheap sex murder novel with so much shock factor that you would like it on one level and hate it on another. We both liked parts of it and disliked other aspects of it, in particular how graphic and overly sexual it was. It’s really nothing short of disturbing. We would have to say that if you’re thinking of seeing this film that you should probably wait for the rental.

John – ** Rental
Becky – ** Rental
_________________________________________________________________________
Auto Broker – John Boyd “The Cool Car Guy”
John is an automotive consultant with Centennial Leasing & Sales in Denver, Colorado. He can help you save time and money on any make or model, new or used, lease or purchase – nationwide!
Call or email John about your next vehicle!
jboyd@coolcarguy.com