Last night we watched The Bourne Supremacy. In a word, disappointing. It wasn’t terrible, it just wasn’t anything special at all.

Matt Damon is back as Jason Bourne, a super secret agent, blah, blah, blah. He’s basically a young James Bond with super fighting training. He’s retired from (basically left) the special ops and wants to just live with his girlfriend. Well guess what, the bad guys kill his girlfriend while trying to kill him since they framed him for a crime. The really stupid problem is that you never really understand what that underlying plot is, only that the bad guys are bad and the good guys are good. It’s just that that good guys like Jason (Damon) is bad and they want to get him.

In short the plot is terrible overall (at the end the *bad* guy gets arrested, even though I had no idea what he’d really done other than being the *bad guy*). There is a great car chase scene in it, and some good fighting. Damon does a great job in his character, it’s just that it’s a totally 2 dimensional one. Paul Greengrass just lost it directing this one, and even though Doug Liman (who directed the first one) executive produced it it was far below the first. If you really want to see it see it, if you’re on the fence avoid…

Recently we saw Maria Full of Grace. It was excellent. First warning, it’s subtitled (it’s originally in Spanish). Since subtitles don’t bother me at all we watched on… an man was I glad.

It’s the story of a young girl in Columbia that, like most there, is very poor. She becomes pregnant and isn’t sure what to do. She doesn’t want to marry her the father of the baby, she wants a “better life”. She meets another guy at a party and everything goes down hill from there. She decides to be a “mule”, basically a human carrier for cocaine to get it into the US. She has to swallow 50-60 pellets (about twice the size of a large grape) filled with cocaine.

It’s very tense at times and in generaly is just wonderfully done. Catalina Sandino Moreno does an excellent job as Maria, and Joshua Marston does an excellent job with the direction and writing. Highly recommended.

We just finished watching The Clearing and it was really great! I was skeptical at first, as I’d never heard of it (my wife does an awesome job of finding these great little movies) but my opinion on it changed very quickly once it started.

It stars Robert Redford as a self made millionaire who is kidnapped by a pseudo-former employee Willem Dafoe. The majority of the movie is in flashback, showing Redford and Dafoe as the go walking through the woods to an unknown cabin. The interplay between the two is excellent, they do a wonderful job playing off of each other and at times the story is very suspenseful. Helen Mirren is also excellent as Redford’s wife, dealing with the FBI and their children on what to do.

The story is great, the cast is excellent, and the direction superb (by Pieter Jan Brugge who was the executive producer of Heat). My only complaint was that it was a bit short at just over an hour and a half (I would have like to have seen more – but this is a minor complaint). Highly recommended!

So if you haven’t heard yet (and I’m sure you have) Target has banned the Salvation Army from soliciting for donations in front of all Target stores for this season and all upcoming ones.

While I strongly disagree with this ban, I do understand and support their “no soliciting” ban. I just hate solicitations at locations like this, but I feel that Target is being way to inflexible in their stance here. All rules, all, should have exceptions. Ok, so I understand they don’t want to make one (and at least they gave plenty of notice – they let the Salvation Army know in January of 2004), but they should stand firm on this.

Here’s the problem. Today while shopping at my local Target store WE WERE SOLICTED TO! That’s right, a local Denver radio station, Alice 105.9 was setup broadcating from there and they, in association with others, were handing out solicitations asking for donations! I was AMAZED! When we got in the car I called the store manager to express my amazement. The manager handled it well and let me know that these decisions, both the Alice 105.9 issue and the Salvation Army one are not in their control, but rather come from their corporate office. They gave me the Guest Relations number (1-800-440-0680 – Email Here – PLEASE CALL OR EMAIL THEM) and asked me to discuss it with them. So I did.

The woman I spoke to was less than polite and less than apologetic about the Salvation Army issue. She said their policy is firm, and that there should be no way this would be allowed under any circumstances. She said she would contact the store and *others* to see what was going on. When I asked how I could find out the resolution I was told there was no way for that to happen. No one else I could talk to. No one that would call me back. Nothing.

So should we ban Target? Well in some ways I would say yes, but the fact is it is just way to convenient to shop there, I like the store, the prices, the selection, etc. Also according to Target they donate, no average, 2 million dollars per week to charities. That’s great. While I strongly disagree with their firmness on this issue I can agree with the ban. I was just amazed that they would break their rule for a local radio station and not the Salvation Army and I wanted to share.

Last night we saw Dodgeball and it was hysterical! Now you have to like low-brow, stupid Ben Stiller / Vince Vaughn humor. If you do it’s great, if you don’t avoid!

So the story is very basic, evil globo-gym is going to take over little Average Joe’s Gym. To stop them Average Joe’s enters a professional dodgeball (which I’m a little surprised doesn’t actually exist) tournament to win $50,000 to save their gym. You can guess the plot, you can predict the jokes, but it’s still great! The cast is great together (Christine Taylor plays the love interest, Rip Torn is great as the team coach, and Stephen Root is great also). If you’re in the mood for something that’s stupid funny I’d recommend it!

We just finished watching The Ladykillers. It was terrible. Just terrible. How the Coen brothers made this film is beyond me (O Brother, Where Art Thou? is one of my all time favorite films).

There are a few saving graces in the movie, most notably is Tom Hanks role as Professor G.H. Dorr. He does a great job as a southern gentlemen, and while being very funny isn’t overly stereo-typical. The music is the other. It’s filled with tons of wonderful southern gospel. It’s just great. At times its the only thing about the movie that’s even worth watching.

There are a few funny moments, and it’s got a decent cast, it just very predictable and stale. Not sure what they were thinking, but the Coen boys sure missed the boat with this one… Avoid…