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Dan Cook at San Jose Event Center

I’m not a big Dane Cook fan.  If someone was playing his CD or DVD I would listen or watch. But watching him live in concert is a different story.  I had no set expectations in seeing him in concert.  Unfortunately, his concert at the HP Pavilion was fair to middling at best.  He lacked any real energy or (fake) spontaneity, relying solely on his charm to push him through the night.  For me, the opening acts garnered more bellyful laughs.

Timothy Finn does a good review of Dane Cook’s concert earlier this year. It sums up the experience pretty well. Would I pay to see Dane Cook again?  Probably.  Would I spend as much? Probably not.

(photo via sjsharktank)

You don’t know what I’m capable of.

Liam Neeson does his best Jason Bourne in this action movie. Neeson is an ex-Preventer who must now use his skills to save his daughter. The movie moves along in a good clip. The violence can get intense at times, but the payoff works.

Rating: Matinee

It’s Wolverine, bub!

First off, I hated the title of this film.  It’s more suited as a comic book title than a film title.  I think they could have gotten away with Wolverine.  Non-fanboys would have known who Wolverine was, at least I think. I know he’s no Superman or Batman, but the target audience knows who Wolverine is. Well, onto the film itself.

As an origins story, it provided pretty minimal grit to understanding the man who is Wolverine in all the X-Men films. The story starts off with James / Logan as a boy and by the end of the opening credits he’s a man.  The opening credits helped the film along similar to Watchmen, covering enough history to get to a fair starting point for the story.  Well, what there is of a story.

I found the story weak and confusing at times. There are too many characters and story points to be compressed within the 107 minutes of the film. You can’t grasp any sense of who these characters are and why you should hate or care for them. It’s cool to see Gambit and Deadpool on the big screen, but it’d just as interesting to play them in a video game then watch them in this film again.

The fight scenes were on par with other X-Men films.  But oddly the special effects seem to be worse.  I would say the original X-Men film had better special effects than some of the scenes in this film. If you can wait for this film to come out on DVD, I’d say do so.  It should be out by the end of the year.

Rating: Rental

The crew of the Enterprise 2009

I tried to set my expectations low for this movie, hoping it would be good. Looking back I didn’t need to do this, as the movie succeeds on many levels.  This incarnation of Star Trek is accessible to both those familiar with and those new to Star Trek.  The story involves time travel - of course, it does, it’s Star Trek and J.J. Abrams - Romulans, Vulcans, and everything else in between.  I think the only thing that was missing was a Klingon.

The casting worked brilliantly, even having Winona Ryder as Spock’s mom worked.  The special effects helped, not hindered, the story’s progression.  There were two things that annoyed me: (1) the amount of lens flares in the movie, and (2) Pavel Chekov’s accent. The latter annoyed me only because of the number of lines Anton Yelchin, who plays Chekov, had to speak.  I would have preferred more lines from Simon Pegg, who plays the lovable Scotty.

Rating: Full Admission

Puppies. Evil puppies.

This is another one of those feel-good movies.  But if you know your dog movies, then you know what’ll happen. Yeah, it happens, but not after Marely gets a hold of your heart. Wow, did I just write that? If you’ve seen the trailer, then you’ve pretty much seen the whole movie. Jennifer Aniston and Owen Wilson are likable, but their characters, and the story, really don’t go anywhere. The movie won’t rot your brain, but it won’t stimulate it either.

Rating: Cable TV

Hello Red. What are you doing here?

You may have seen Redbox in your local grocery store, Wal-Mart, or even your local McDonald’s. It’s a DVD rental machine. You get a DVD for $1 dollar for one day. Not a bad deal considering your other brick-and-mortar options (e.g. Blockbuster). I went to their website to see what movies they had to offer.

The site is easy to use. After creating an account, you can access their DVD catalog. Registering only requires an email address. Search is easily done by movie title, release date, category, or even by the Redbox closest to you. I was disappointed by the number of titles offered. I wanted to watch The Reader, since it is listed as Long Wait in my Netflix queue, but Redbox doesn’t offer this movie.

When you find a movie you want to rent, you can reserve it online with a credit card. The DVD is reserved for about 24 hours. If you don’t pick up the DVD, it will be released for rental and you’ll still be charged. After reserving, go to the machine’s location (listed on the site), and swipe the credit card you used on the website. The DVD will pop out encased in a firm plastic case. It’s that simple.

It appears Redbox may start offering Blu-ray titles, but there doesn’t appear to be a start date for this. If they offer Blu-ray and a broader selection of DVD titles, it could prove to be a successful alternative to my Netflix habit. If they continue to only offer limited titles, they may not make a significant dent in my rental habits.

I think there’s something on your face.

I finally watched the Oscar-winning-feel-good-movie-of-the-year on DVD.  Yes, the actors are likable. Yes, the story is predictable. Yes, I’ll watch it if it’s on cable television, but I don’t think I’ll buy the DVD or rent it again.  If you have two hours to spend on a movie, this isn’t a bad choice.  You won’t have to think about the plot points too much, and it’ll make you, well, feel good.

Rating: Cable TV