We went to see this last night (we went to the last showing, since we took Kael with us)

And its a good movie… Keira is a hottie (of course) and definitely looked good in her half-naked warrior’s armor as Guinevere. Overall, I like it. Its a different take on the standard King Arthur tale. Its an attempt to look at the ‘real’ events that may have inspired the legend of King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table.

It does start a little slow, and the story is predictable in spots, but that’s to be expected when you’re telling/re-telling a story that almost everyone already knows. Since its only rated PG-13, even the love scene between Arthur and Guinevere is very tame (just head and shoulder shots for the most part.) Good movie, go see it. I’d give it 4 stars out of 5.

On a semi-related note, Keira states in this article that if she felt it was necessary, she would do a nude scene. Here’s hoping she decides its necessary in one of her next roles!

Just got home from a ‘sneak preview’… thanks to the nice folks over at Starland

And I must say, I enjoyed the movie!

Yeah.. there were a couple of ‘cheesy’ moments (and few bad FX shots).. but overall the story was consistent, acting wasn’t bad.. and the FX were good (Note to whoever did the FX for NBC’s 10.5 — Watch this movie to learn how to properly destroy entire cities via natural disasters!). Of course, the ‘moral’ of the story was laid on very thick.. and its kinda funny that one of the scenes that got the most laughter was when Dennis Quaid’s character drove up in a Hybrid car…

As far as disaster movies go.. I’d have to say that this is the best one I’ve seen in awhile… predictable in a few places.. but most movies are these days, so thats forgivable. Between this and Shrek 2.. I’d have to say the Summer movie season is off to a good start… Plan on seeing this one..

According to the rumor sites, the working title for Episode III is now “Birth of the Empire”.. apparently there is some doubt, since this would be yet another movie with ‘of the’ in the title. I’m not sure why that would make a difference.. but apparently it does…

Anyway.. Lucas should be announcing the real title within the next month or two….

And be sure to add a few extra days for standing in line..

Because Lucas has announced the date for the 6th, and final, Star Wars Movies (Episode III, still doesn’t have an officially released name. – Although “Rise of the Empire” is floating around as a possible name, supposedly even marketing materials have been printed up with this name).

May 19th, 2005. Which is a Thursday (odd, only because most movies are released on Weds. or Friday)

Someone save me a seat (or three) in line…

So.. the first week of the 2 week season is over

And I missed Friday night’s.. dammit… Luckily every episode aired so far, is available from Cartoonnetwork , granted its in a ‘low resolution’ format.. so its only like 120×280 or something like that. Still its better then not being able to see it at all. Hopefully, Cartoon Network will do like they did at the end of season 1, and run the whole second season at once, before they air episode 20. Or, maybe George will figure out that yet another way to make money off us Star Wars fans, will be to release all 20 episodes on DVD… since most of the Star Wars fans I know would buy it.. as long as it wasn’t more then like $20.00.

Anyway.. so far Darth Sidious and Darth Tyranus have recruited Assa Venture (I think that’s the chick’s name…) to kill (or attempt to kill) Anakin. Anakin has disobeyed Obi-Wan (Big surprise there, huh?) Mace kicked an entire robot army’s ass by himself, Yoda is rescuing Baris Ofee and one other lady Jedi who’s name escapes me at the moment – while kicking a robot army’s ass by himself…just so he can one-up Mace.

So, just like the first season, the animation and the story telling is excellent… the voice work is close enough given that they aren’t using the ‘real’ actors. I’d love for Lucas to give the OK, and actually have a 30-minute long cartoon series set somewhere in the Star Wars universe… if its done by the same guys doing the Clone Wars stuff, it’d be a hit.

So… Kael and I were flipping channels this evening and found this show on the Discovery Channel

Its actually pretty cool. They pick two animals (the one we saw was Elephant and Rhino). And then they figure out which would win in a one-on-one fight. They do it all via computer simulation. But, to get their data, they ‘build’ the animal and then test it to get real numbers for its strength. For example, they crafted an Elephant skull and tusks out of Aluminum and then attached it to a small crane to use as the body. They then were able to see how much force the Elephant could apply to pierce something with its tusks, how much force it could apply to lift something with its tusks, and how much force it could apply by ramming something with its head. They then did similar tests with the Rhino, plugged all the numbers into a computer, had some animators render up the animals, and let the simulation run….

In case you’re wondering… the Elephant kicked the Rhino’s ass… Brains and Brawn over Rage and Brawn… the Elephant was smarter and stronger… If you get the Discovery channel, try and catch an episode of this… it looks like it normally airs on Sundays..

Damn… long enough title? Anyway… tonight was the premier of season 2 of the the Star Wars animated series, Clone Wars.

The animated shows, each only like 5 minutes or so long, are telling some of the story of the events that occurred during the Clone Wars, which started at the end of Attack of the Clones, and ends before/during Episode III (which, by the way, is rumored to be titled Rise of the Empire). Tonight’s episode picked up right where episode 10 left off. If you missed it it will be available for viewing tomorrow on cartoonnetwork.com And i’m sure that CN will repeat them all at the end of the season, just as they did season 1.

My only complaint about the series… is that they are to short! I want a full half hour show dammit!

So, earlier I’d mentioned the ‘rumored’ packaging for the DVD release in September (Episodes 4,5,and 6)

Turns out… while they were nicely done mockups.. they apparently weren’t the real thing. Actual images of the DVD packaging have been officially release by Lucas…. click here . Not as much of a choice this time around as to what packaging you want. Platinum for the Wide Screen. Gold for the ‘Full Screen’ (Does anyone actually still buy movies released in ‘cropped’ versions? If they do… do they realize that ‘full screen’ is a misnomer, and they’re really missing something like 30% (I think) of the footage?)

anyway… I’ll take the Platinum..since I much prefer the Widescreen version of films..I haven’t heard anything concrete that will be on the 4th disc of ‘special features’ but.. I’ll let you know if I do…

So, I went last night to see the remake of Dawn of the Dead

Not a terribly scary movie… good gore though. Its been awhile since I’ve seen the original, so I don’t know how close to the original they stayed with this remake. I did just add the original the my Netflix queue, so I’ll get to see it again soon.

Overall, I liked the movie, it was a good Zombie flick. Like I said, not really scary (there are few of the required ‘something jumping out at a character and try and scare the audience’ moments) it did have some hilarious lines in it though. If you’re a zombie movie fan, definitely a must see.

The theatre I saw it at had trailers for Van Helsing (A different one than the Superbowl trailer which has been online for awhile), The Punisher (also a different one that what’s been on line), Chronicles of Riddick, and Troy. All of which look pretty good. And any of the 4 that weren’t on my summer movie to see list is now there (Except maybe Troy…I still haven’t made up my mind if I want to pay to see that in a theatre or just wait for the DVD)

Battlestar Galactica: The Series :

So, Sci-Fi ran the mini-series in December and said that they would decide later if they were going to turn it into a series

Well, apparently, later has come. While I didn’t see the announcement myself, but Sci-Fi has made their decision:

They have ordered 13 episodes, to be aired later, so we’ll still have to wait and see when they air the series…If the series is as well done as the min-series was, I think it will do good and be a hit. Personally, I’m looking forward to it.