First of all, let me start off by telling you that I really, really liked this movie from the start.  How much better can you get with two of the greatest actors (in my opinion) today, Christian Bale and Rusell Crowe?  Well, these two had a great chemistry together as the dutiful husband who can’t seem to catch a break and the outlaw who takes what he wants and doesn’t care who he steps on to get it (Crowe), in this western movie that is anything but your typical western.

It had great promise from the beginning as we see the story unfold of how Bale’s character Dan Evans, a rancher who has nothing after his barn is burnt down and he can’t pay his debts and barely feed his children, ends up escorting Crowe’s outlaw character Ben, to the Yuma train station to a federal prison.

There’s plenty of shooting and killing, but the acting is what really keeps your attention.  As usual, Crowe fascinates with his effortless charm and sinister evil side, and I daresay he even eclipses the performance of my currently favorite actor Christian Bale a bit for much of the movie. 

However, and this is a big however, the movie loses all of its integrity and believability about 3/4 of the way through, and compeltely lost me at the end.  In fact, it turns downright hokey!  I don’t want to blow the ending, but some seriously questionable events happen that make you think the whole movie was just a farce, and you actually end up being mad that you liked the movie to start. 

If you see it, you might know what I mean, but if you’re inclined the like the unplausible, feel good, fuzzy and warm allover even though you know the string of events is total BS, you might like it.  Leave you comments if you’ve seen it, I’m curious to see what others thought of the last part of the movie…….

Well, apparently it was a busy week for the Big Brother contestants.  According to live feeds, I read on another site that Amanda, the “booty girl” with the butt that would make any girl envious, passed out because she is hypoglycemic and needed sugar.  She was rushed off to a hospital after also having a mini seizure-like episode after she awoke. 

Another female player, Allison, Ryan’s partner, was reportedly also rushed off in an ambulance after having a bad allergic reaction to something she ate.  No word yet on whether either contestant will be back on the show, but let’s hope they will be, because they both add a lot to the show. 

This season of Big Brother has proven to be one of the most interesting so far, if you ask me.  The twist this season, if you don’t watch, is that each player came into the house already being (unknown to them), matched up to what the producers said per personality tests was  a “perfect match” for them (romantically).  The catch was, they and their partner did everything together - slept in the same bed, made the decision on who to vote out together, and got eachother in trouble - together.

The catch has definitely thrown some wrenches in the show, getting Parker and his partner, and Ryan’s girlfriend who spilled the beans about their pre-existing relationship only two days into the game, Jen, voted off the show for being too strong and outspoken players in the game.   Ryan and Allison were saved from eviction because Jen has a big mouth, and Parker also showed that he had a trouble making side to him - never a good combination on Big Brother, if you ask me.

They’ve already lost one player, Joshua’s partner, to a family emergency, and had to replace him with another castmate Sharon who had already been voted out of the house as the first eviction with her idiot partner who got them into hot water on the first night there. 

This season of Big Brother has egos to spare, and a lot of men and women who seem to butt heads and not know how to play the game in a cool and collected way.  I’m constantly shouting at the screen DUH, but I have to admit it makes for good television watching these idiots shoot themselves in the foot over and over again. 

It seems that the world is going the way of the Blue Ray DVD now.  Hmm, wonder how that’s going to affect everything, since it seems that DVD’s available in this format are a somewhat limited selection, at least by my gauge.  One of the biggest retail chains here in the US (ok, probably THE biggest still), Wal-mart is reportedly going the way of the Blue Ray. 

I’m not sure if this means we are backing away from those high def DVD’s, since I’m not really a techie, but it sounds like they are making the jump everywhere, since I also just read that a major DVD player maker is ditching the high def format to go with Blue Ray.  As I said, I’m not really sure why this would be since it seems that both are fairly new technologies, but there is obviously some sort of preference if major players are making these moves this early on in the game! 

The new edition of The burned out Apprentice show helmed (hosted) by none other than Mr. Self Promotion Donald Trump has actually got some pretty good TV moments in store if you, like me, had burned out on the show after the great first season.  Even though the first season did drag on too long, with Bill Rancik winning (by the way, he’s now hitched to a popular entertainment tv host), it was an innovative idea, thought of by none other than the pioneer of reality tv himself, who was also behind Survivor and several other British reality tv shows.

As it looked like the Apprentice would surely be cancelled, Mr. Trump, or his producers, seemed to pull another new trick out of their hat that has reportedly had the show renewed for another season, one of the oldest tricks in the book, to get celebrities on the show and watch them go at it just like the regular folks do, maybe even worse. 

This is a good idea, because if you think about it, most celebrities have big egos and already have certain ideas about how they should be treated and talked to, and throwing them into this kind of situation, where brains and resources really are all that back you up, was an interesting study in human “pack” mentality.

Throw in some eccentricity, like they did in casting Stephen Baldwin, a born again Christian, Gene Simmons, and the guy from the Sopranos who played Big Pussy who apparently believes the he is really a part of the mob in real life, and you’ve got one entertaining show.  Oh, he was also smart enough to recast another of the most reknown tv villains, Omarosa, who was the villain of all villains in season one with her primadonna ways and conniving backstabbing. 

The new Celebrity Apprentice leaves you waiting for the next season, to see which egos will butt heads this week.  It’s definitely interesting, and I’d recommend that anyone who wants to see heads butt and egos clash try to watch this scintillating bit of guilty pleasure tv. 

I just saw the newest teen angst/comedy called Super Bad last night, and while I did get some genuine laughs from the movie, it definitely didn’t live up to the hype it generated, at least to me.  Most people I knew said it was the next American Pie and compared it to that movie, which in comparison, I think is a really funny and original movie.  Super Bad tries to be original, but it ends up being very cliche in some spots, and actually annoyingly overdone in others.

The main problem I had with the movie was not Michael Cera, who played George Michael in the little seen but largely acclaimed television comedy Arrested Development, but his buddy, whose name escapes me at the moment.  His buddy plays the less responsible, foul mouthed friend, and the two have been friends since they were youngsters.  In typical teen angst fashion, they’re misfits and they’re trying to get laid in the last two weeks of their high school career when life will be taking them in two different directions.

Sounds like American Pie so far, but it really isn’t as clever.  At least in American Pie, the funny Stifler character wasn’t constantly screaming or over the top like the chubby dude in Super Bad.  There were a couple of funny concepts though, like the one where the chubby part of the duo admits that he had a problem compulsively drawing male genitalia as a kid, and when the nerdy part of the expanded threesome, name Fogle (which I thought was great name for a gangly nerd), gets in the middle of a liquor store robbery when he tries to buy liquor with his miserably inept new fake ID. 

The fact that he doesn’t look a day over twelve years old adds to the comedy.  And, I think this movie took a few cues from American Pie, since the nerdiest guy ends up getting the most action (sorry, that’s a spoiler, if you want to call it that for this movie).  All in all, I definitely wouldn’t say it was hilarious, but it did have a few scenes that were funny.  As far as whether I’d rent it if I’d known in advance how good it was, no.