I have two words that are going to make all your troubles go away: "Miniature" "Golf".

Greetings all. Hope all is well. Had a lovely little weekend with some quality family time, some good meals and laughs and one malfunctioning toilet.

March Madness is in the air and isn’t it sweet? (*written 2 days ago*) If ND doesn’t blow it they should secure themselves a birth in the tournament this year. They won’t get too far but it’ll be a fun time while it lasts. (*written today*) Well, they blew it. Losing to Rutgers. Goodbye tourney hopes. ND sports blows it in crunch time again. But props to the women’s team for their 4 seed in their tournament. Ouch to Illinois for blowing their undefeated season the last game of the season. D’oh!

Caught Be Cool over the weekend. Not as good as Get Shorty but pretty good and if nothing else, funny. The all-star cast of the original gets updated to today’s modern stars. Out are Gene Hackman, Rene Russo, Dennis Farina. In come Vince Vaughn, Uma Thurman, Harvey Keitel, Cedric the Entertainer, Andre 3000 and the Rock. Not a bad cast. Cedric gets a good Quentin Tarantino-esque monologue and Andre and the Rock are hilarious playing parodies of themselves. Vince Vaughn starts to grate on the nerves a little after a while but on the whole, the movie is a good time.

So seeing as how we’re fast approaching the new year’s movie season when studios start actually giving a rat’s ass about movies and not putting out schlock like The Pacifier (remember when Vin Diesel was working with Steven Spielberg in Saving Private Ryan?), I thought I’d whip out my list of :

Top 5 movies I’m Most Looking Forward To

(in order of release)

Sin City – April 1^st

I’ve never read the comics so I can’t speak for how good they may be, but there’s 3 reasons I’m psyched about this movie: 1) Robert Rodriguez – The man behind the El Mariachi trilogy has some serious style behind his films. Yeah, a lot of people didn’t like Once Upon a Time in Mexico. I’ll be honest, I didn’t buy Willem Defoe as a Mexican either no matter how much makeup he was wearing but still the movie worked great as a capper to the trilogy. 2) The Look – this could be the Sky Captain of 2005 with is fantastic noir black & white look. No matter how good the movie ends up being, it’s going to be some serious eye candy. 3) The Cast – Ok, let’s see here: Bruce Willis, Clive Owen, Mickey Rourke (the Harley Davidson guy?), Benecio Del Toro, Jessica Alba, Rosario Dawson, Elijah Wood, Nick Stahl, Brittany Murphy, Jamie King, Alexis Bledel, Josh Hartnett, Michael Madsen and Michael Duncan Clark…… ok then.

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – May 6^th

If you’ve never read these books, stop reading, go out to your car, drive to Barnes and Noble, walk inside, find the books under author Douglas Adams, buy them, walk out, buy a Dr. Pepper, sit down and read them. These books are truly the most twisted, messed up, mind-boggling, warped, and without a doubt funniest books ever written. I mean how great is a book which involves the destruction of earth, political intrigue, torture by poetry, a clinically depressed robot, the creation of earth and gives you the answer to life, the universe and everything? This movie looks to keep that trend up perfectly. Fantastic casting, including Sam Rockwell as Zaphod Beeblebrox (if you saw him in Galaxy Quest or Confessions of a Dangerous Mind you know how fantastic an actor he is.) and Alan Rickman as the voice of Marvin the Paranoid Android. Hell yes.

Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith – May 19^th

Ok, this is it. The last one. The Omega. The finale. Good bye Obi Wan. Is it going to kick ass? I think so. Why? One, because it’s going to take most of the political jargon and half-hearted love speak and throw it out the window in favor of lightsabers and space battles. Sweeeeeet. Lucas has gone on record as saying this will probably be the first Star Wars with a PG-13 rating. That’s fantastic because this is supposed to be a dark movie and I was scared to death that Lucas was gonna start chopping away at the good stuff to get it down to PG. But it looks like he’s sticking to his guns, making me actually happy with him for the first time since I saw Jar Jar Binks. Two, because finally Hayden Christenson will get what’s coming to him after the agonizingly stilted acting in Episode 2 when he gets the crap kicked out of him by Ewan McGregor in the ultimate duel which is what every Star Wars fan has been waiting for since the prequels began. Three, James Earl Jones is coming back as the voice of Darth Vader. Giggity giggity giggity.

Batman Begins – June 17^th

Ok, with the possible exception of the first Burton one, Batman has gotten kicked in the nuts repeatedly with these movies. Were those responsible punished? Were they ostracized from society, driven out to the middle of nowhere and left for dead? No. They were given a freaking academy award for writing Beautiful Mind! Damn you Akiva Goldsmith! So what does this one have that might make up for it? Joel Schumaker has been kicked out and told to go direct more Andrew Lloyd Webber musicals and they’re bringing on Christopher Nolan. If anyone can present a serious mood it’s the guy who did Memento and the American remake of Insomnia. Writer: David Goyer, writer of Dark City and Blade. Ok, so we’ve got the dark atmosphere in here. Casting: Christian Bale, Michael Caine, Morgan Freeman, Liam Neeson, Ken Watanabe (Last Samarai and the upcoming Memoirs of a Geisha), Katie Holmes, and Cilian Murphy (28 Days Later… this guy knows how to play unhinged) as the Scarecrow. Based at least partially on Frank Miller’s (see also Sin City) Batman: Year One. I think this could be, dare I say it, a great Batman movie.

Serenity – September 30^th

Ok, you’ve read my raves of Firefly, well this is something that any Joss Whedon fan has been waiting for, a full out big budget Whedon film. He’s never directed any of his own movies before so this’ll be great as he has full control. Based on everything I’ve read this is gonna have the same wit, adventure, charm and out and out hilarity as the show itself but without the one hour long time limit of TV. The cancellation of the show left a million questions unanswered which Whedon will be looking to remedy and at the same time I guarantee it’ll work for anyone who hasn’t seen the show. This could turn out to be the best space adventure flick of the year (and looking at my list that’s some pretty stiff competition). Personally, I can’t wait.

There are a few other films that I am looking forward to quite a bit: Peter Jackson's King Kong and the next Harry Potter movie, but as they won't be out til the end of the year, I can't get that excited about them yet.

Shameless plugs:

My own Episode III: DONE!!! Now comes the obligatory down time but I promise it won’t be as long as the last one I took.

Booter updated his blog!

Until next time:

"Save me Shiva."
"Why don't you just call out for Hawkman?"
"Why don't you shut up?"