Well, just when I thought I hated Will Ferell for overdoing everything and overexposing himself in the endless sports-themed movies about the underdog, loser goofballs somehow coming out on top, with the same, tired storylines and exact same character every time, he went and pleasantly surprised me.  We actually borrowed Ferrell’s movie with his friend and frequent coworker John C Reilly, called “Stepbrothers” from a coworker, with low expectations, and the thought that we would most likely end up turning it off thirty minutes in. 

However, after the first hilarious ten minutes of this movie, we were hooked, and the laughs kept on coming most of the way through the movie.  The premise is actually a pretty original one.  It’s about two forty year old men who still live at home with their divorced parents, Ferell’s character lives with his mom, and Reilly’s character lives with his widowed father.  When the two parents meet at a conference, they fall in love and get married almost instantly, much to the dismay of their grown sons who feel like their lifestyle of slackerhood might be compromised by this union.

Hilarity ensues in scenes where the two frienemies start to become friends after they realize they’re not all that different after all.  They both sleep walk (which makes for two hilarious scenes, it would be three if it weren’t for one of them being deleted from the final cut), and their fight that ends in the two starting to become friends.  Mary Steenburgen is a great supporting part of the cast with her sweet voice and kind ways, and it’s even more ironic when we hear her dropping F bombs, something the director should be congratulated for, because the effect is very funny.

After the first hour, the story takes more of a sappy turn, but it never loses it’s edge, with Ferrell and Reilly doing a dirty little ditty on a boat called “Boats and Hos”, and ensuing scenese where Ferrells overachiever brother gets put in his place.  If you liked Talledega Nights, one of Ferrell’s better parodies, I think you may actually like Stepbrothers better.  It wasn’t marketed as well which is why I think it didn’t do as well commercially, but it’s actually a funnier movie in my opinion. 

I like some of the cuttting edge Showtime shows, my favorite being “Dexter” the series about a serial killer who kills other murderers, but I must say that I feel like HBO still has the upper hand by a long shot when it comes to having the best original television programming of weekly shows.  You’ve gotta think of all the winners HBO has pumped out in comparison to Showtime, at least in my eyes, and there’s no competition, although Showtime’s got some pretty decent stuff. 

One of Showtime’s shows I figured I’d take a shot at is Brotherhood, which is basically a story about the Irish mafia.  It’s about two Irish brothers, one of which is a rising politician in Providence, Rhode Island and the other of which is a career criminal who is mobbed up. After being out of town and presumably dead for years, the criminal brother comes back into town to his brother’s dismay.  He says he’s changed his ways, but as we soon see, he hasn’t, giving his mother counterfeit money to spend and already getting into altercations and shady dealings.

Anabeth Gish is surprisingly good as the wife of the politician, whose name is Tommy (his brother is Michael) Caffey.  I usually think her performance are a bit wooden and not very heartfelt, and therefore never felt I could connect with her as any character.  Here, that presence makes sense and her character is more identifiable and more intriguing.  I think I’m still mad at her for taking the place of one of the beloved X Files FBI agents

The series is ok, but the machismo and violence factor and some of the dialogue is a bit ridiculous.  It definitely comes on too strong, and I think it’s going for too many shocks too fast.  I’ve only watched one episode, the first one, so far, but I’m hoping that like with many other series, network or not, it gets warmed up after the first few and starts to get good.  I figure if this was how I felt with The Wire on HBO at first, a series that I grew to fanatically love, then I may like this one after the awkwardness goes away.

We went and saw the new Keanu Reeves movie “The Day the Earth Stood Still”, a remake of an earlier version that got accolades for it’s advanced concepts and ideas and thought provoking subject matter about the end of the world, and our role in that as human beings inhabiting this earth.  I can see why the movie may not have gotten such high marks from some more cynical critics, especially given that most movie critics unfairly beat up on Keanu Reeves. 

However, the wooden style he sometimes is criciticized for is exactly what his character calls for in this movie, and I would argue that the others are like that too.  Ok, Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure aside, I’m willing to go out on a limb and tell the world that I really like his acting!  I can’t think of one movie he was in that I actually despised, and I’m not the easiest critic either. 

I’d have to say the weakest part of the movie is the acting that’s done by the young Jaden Smith, who is supposed to be Jennifer Connolly’s character’s step kid, but who comes off as being a bit of an over acter at times and plays it up a little too much.  He wasn’t godawful, but he was the cliche kid actor, a little annoying at times with the unnecessary drama.  For example, at one point, he is at his father’s grave site, and he does the dramatic fall to the knees followed by a head drop that was enough to make anyone cringe a little on the inside.   

The movie is about an alien invasion.  It starts with these huge pods coming out of the sky and settling in various areas of the world.  The purpose of the pods is something that we don’t really learn until the last half hour of the movie, but I liked the twist and didn’t expect that their purpose was that interesting. 

I’m a fan of the science fiction, end of the world movies, so it’s no surprise that I liked this one, even despite some of it’s somewhat amateur faults.  Keanu did a great job as the alien Klatu who comes to the earth to negotiate with humans and see if they can change their ruinous ways, but quickly decides after conversing with another ambassador alien who has been living amongst humans for seventy years that the human race is no capable of changing, and he sets in forth the motion of world destruction.

What follows is Jennifer Connolly’s character trying desperately to talk him out of what he is doing claiming that people can change, they really can.  That’s the part that’s also a little weak.  Klatu, not really knowing what makes people tick, is suddenly struck by a sense of duty to let this pathetic race (or so his colleagues think) continue and try to improve and change their ways, but we never really see why he suddenly has the change of heart, other than a few displays of humanity and emotions that he witnesses. 

Overall, I enjoyed The Day the Earth Stood Still.  It may not be for everybody, but I really liked it because it’s a thought provoking and original idea for a story (I know, it was already done before, but I love the idea of the story).  I think if you go into it with an open mind, you’ll come out pleasantly surprised.

Blue ray DVD players and blue ray DVD’s are shooting right past most sales forecasts for the hot ticket items.  In fact, they’ve already substantially surpassed the sales in the holiday season of 2007, even in this awful economy we’ve been experiencing.  The reason some people say the sales aren’t hurting for these home entertainment units is that with the recession, more people are opting to stay at home and “nest” and do things for entertainment at home instead of going out and spending money on entertainment, which is usually a lot more expensive than anything you can do at home.

The blue ray players have come down in price too, as with most other new pieces of technology, so the lesser models are appealing to a more broad audience, since a wider range of people can afford to buy them.  However, the price fo the blue ray discs themselves isn’t really low.  They run about twenty five to thirty dollars each currently (for example, Batman Dark Knight blue ray runs about $25 right now), and that’s a bit pricey for something that you may only watch once or twice if you ask me.

Now I’m not denying that blue ray doesn’t look completely awesome on the screen, especially if you happen to have a high definition tv already, but I am hoping that the cost of the DVD’s themselves comes down to make it a truly functional option to going out for people who are trying to watch their pesos right now.

Some of the blue ray dvd players that are getting the highest marks are Panasonic, Sony and Samsung.  I’ve been to a few stores where these seem to be the top sellers, and they are flying off the shelves.  They were on sale at a lot of places on Black Friday for about $199 when they are normally about $250 to $300 for the same model, and there’s no telling whether they’ll be that price again.  Time will tell!  Hopefully those of you that still want to get a deal on a blue ray players haven’t missed the boat entirely on the lower prices.