Amateur movie reviewer: Land of the Lost

Viewed 06/05/09. Premiered 06/05/09. A fun, smart updating of the Sid & Marty Kroft’s kid show from the 70s; The tweaking of the characters made sense, an outdoorsman father and his two kids would not survive long in such an environment. So in this updating, the human characters were not related: two were scientists and the third a survivalist (though I didn’t see much evidence of that in the film). There were a lot of really funny scenes throughout, especially Chaka’s few seconds in the spotlight as he demonstrated his singing prowess. A fun movie I would recommend for Will Ferrell fans as well as those wanting a trip down memory lane. Beware of taking young children to this flick, there’s some adult language (mostly from Ferrell) and some really, really mild adult situations (the initial meeting with Chaka come to mind); gotta love the ending though. Can “Sigmund and the Sea Monsters” be the next Kroft show to get a reboot? The world may never know. Gave this flick three stars!

Amateur movie reviewer: Terminator: Salvation

viewed 05/22/09. Premiered 05/21/09. The movie director must’ve been a big fan of the franchise to pay homage to the previous films and redeemed itself from the third "Terminator" flick, “Rise of the Machines.”I certainly enjoyed the humble origins of the famous phrase of the franchise, “Come with me if you want to live,” as well as the obvious nod to the first Terminator flick with the phrase, “I’ll be back” from Kyle Reese (Connor’s father) and the semi-guest appearance of the original Terminator – Arnold as the T-800 in the form of a digital effect (speaking of which, is a great improvement over the digital effects of a few years ago – anyone remember the cheesy, fakey and highly primitive attempt at a digital Dwayne Johnson from “The Scorpion King”?). Sure, there are still a few holes in the plot; like why John Conner seemed to have a lapse in memory when it came to the events that transpired in the Terminator 2 & 3 movies at different moments of the film. He, of all people, in the war against Skynet would have insider knowledge of the Terminators. And why did he act surprised when he discovered that Marcus was a Terminator. I enjoyed this flick, but there wasn’t any and many scenes that made it really memorable.