BY KRIS AUMILLER Columnist KRASOIB@ PSU.EDU Despite what everyone wanted, I refused to see "The Comebacks" for this week. The original "Scary Movie" was OK at best, but every one of those spoof movies ("Date Movie" and "Epic Movie") since has been absolutely terrible. Therefore, I wasn't going to waste two hours of my life seeing it. Joaquin Phoenix, Mark Wahlberg; 1 hour, 47 minutes Everyone I knew had at least a slight interest in this movie. Joaquin is great in everything he does and Marky Mark seems to be becoming a real actor. The premise of the movie seemed like it could go nowhere but up. Two brothers: one criminal and one police officer. The movie takes place in New York City in 1988. Bobby Green (Joaquin Phoenix) is manager of a night club that allows some sketchy people through its doors. He is in love with girlfriend Amada Juarez (Eva Mendez, "Ghost Rider") and doesn't mind getting high every night of the week. His brother, Joseph Grusinsky (Mark Wahlberg), ttiswlveAtvre s I 0. 7 1.. K. w•si 404 1 -- tirs4.4 4 .0 0444 1-Nr•rikei! e iutt. Halloween word is a New York City police officer who recently was appointed head of an anti-narcotic task force. At the celebratory dinner for Joe, Bobby actually comes. Their father and chief-of-police, Burt Grusinsky (Robert Duvall, "The Godfather"), asks if Bobby will inform on Russian drug dealer Vadim Nezhinski (Alex Veadov) who hangs out at their club. Wlwn he refuses to snitch, he leaves the party. Unannounced, Joe busts Bobby's club looking for the dealer. Soon of ter, Joe is shot outside his home. When Bobby is told about it, he immediately leaves his poker game and rushes to the hospital. Seeing his brother in the hospital bed, a light goes off for him. He decides to help the police and live up to the patch on the sleeve of the NYPD's war on drugs: "We Own the Night." The movie overall was very good. Joaquin Phoenix steals the show. The other actors really aren't in the film as much. The movie is truly centered on Phoenix. He makes a 100 percent character transformation. I do have a problem with how the movie was paced. Every time a major event happened, it seemed like the pace picks up. But it stayed the same, slow, dramatic pace throughout. There isn't anything wrong with that. However, the film had these huge buildups that led to leveled off emotion. I expected more that never came. I'm not saying that is bad, but it could've been better. RATING: Three balls. I'm still waiting for more exciting stuff to happen. UEit) Sae* we I*: rao:l4 44ortaitf Owe :4 els 1441 year. The ireaHard it *Nowell earilay. il lka "" s ' ;PM KA, otoa A Josh Hartnett, Melissa George; 1 hour, 47 minutes First, I have to go into a little rant about Josh Hartnett. The guy is a really good actor. However, I would like to hear one girl just admit they like him because he is good-looking I have heard some of the most amazing crap reasons for liking him that have nothing to do with his looks. Girls, please just admit it already (krasolB@psu.edu). The town of Barrow, Alaska is the definition of BFE. It is 80 miles from the nearest road. It is above the Arctic Circle and can only be reached by aircraft or sled dogs. For one month of the year, there is no sunlight. Therefore, most people in town head south for the month. Sherriff Eben Oleson (Josh Hartnett) and about 100 residents stay willingly. Unfortunately for Fire Marshall Stella Oleson (Melissa George), also Eben's ex-wife, she is stuck in Barrow be e last time in a month and a stranger (Ben Foster, "3:10 to Yuma") comes along. He tells Eben that "they" are coming, but he never says who "they" are. Finally, "they" start attacking. They take out the town's power supply and start "30 Days of Night" iilkt Y ~,,,o, . 4 ta r I• + ,,, r eh tt•ra .4- search 0 S having their way with the townsfolk. This is the best vampire movie I've ever seen. The vampires look good. They have their own language, which is subtitled, but I thought it was cool anyway. The vampires had superhuman strength and could jump from rooftop to rooftop, take a bullet to the chest and until Josh Hartnett figured it out, could only be killed by damage to the brain. Hartnett became one of the biggest bad asses of all time because of this movie. There you go, girls. You can add that to your list of reasons to like him. He killed vampires with an axe. He didn't sneak behind them either. He went right up to them and swung the axe at their throat. He is on the bad ass list with Jason Bourne, the Terminator and Maximus. RATING: All five. It's in my Top Five for the year. Josh Hartnett needs to keep impressing me and making good movies. ~?~~pc~1P~` DVD: "Transformers" Shia Leßouf, Megan Fox; 2 hours, 24 minutes Who didn't watch or play with Transformers as a kid? I know Nlil*AyN►tJty of 80 I, Ars Tor*" to ►s ;^ owe of thus TVerment e la oieserst. GHOSTS FREDDY KRUEGER JASON LIVING DEAD ZOMBIES PUMPKINS S CREAM EXORCIST TEXAS CHAINSAW MIKE MYERS POLTERGEIST SIXTH SENSE THE RING CHILDREN OF THE CORN DRACULA FRANKENSTEIN AMITYVILLE SAW 'JAUNT I NG S ELM STREET THE CAPITAL TIMES ITS rf tot y*/ ts .m4l kelt cktok ‘‘, r c 3 4 IT" they were third on the depth chart for me, behind Ninja Turtles and Ghostbusters. Then again, those two are pretty hard to top. My only problem was that I knew GM unloaded a ton of sponsorship money to make all of the cars theirs Therefore, Bumblebee was not ' a Volkswagen Beetle. How dare they... The movie opens with narration by Optimus Prime about "The Cube," or the Al!spark, which can give any mechanical item transforming capability (as shown later in the film when it affects a Mountain Dew vending machine). He says how its origins are unknown and how it landed on Earth. Megatron followed it to Earth so he could use it to create an army and dominate again. Fast forward to present day Qatar. Blackout, a member of the Decepticons, attacks a military base so he can hack into the U.S mainframe for information. When survivors escape, he releases Scorponok to hunt them down in the desert. Elsewhere in the world, Sam Witwicky (Shia Leßeouf) is giving a genealogy report on his great grandfather, Archibald Witwicky. During his speech, he is trying to sell his visual aids to make money for his "car fund." After his speech, Sam and his father go to buy a car and find an old, yellow Camaro. They buy the non-Beetle and Sam is on his way At a party with all the jocks, he offers to take the lovely and beautiful Mikaela Banes (Megan Fox) home. His car stalls and she looks under the ; 11090, When he tries to start his car again, al 5 6 1 1 3 111 6 7 2 1 3 111 111 11111 I■3■9 4 8 1 To Solve: Each row, column and 3x3 block must contain the num bers 1 to 9 without any dupli- October 29, 2007 the radio seems to be "talking" by playing "Baby Come Back." In Qatar, a local boy leads the surviving soldiers to a village. Outside of the village, they encounter Scorponok. Thanks to a local's cell phone, they make an emergency call for help, take him out and take a piece of his tail for research. That night, Sam hears his car starting and thinks it is being stolen He follows it to the train yard. While waiting for the thief to get out, the car stands up and we see Bumblebee for the first time as he signals for the Autobots to come to Earth. This was the first time I had seen the movie. I had a broken toe and couldn't go to the movie theater when it was out and I heard a lot of mixed things from friends. The transformers looked unbelievable. They blew up everything they could think of. It was what Michael Bay is good for. He played with his $l4O million budget and made a pretty damn good movie out of it. All of the actors were great and you could tell that they wanted to nail their parts. There are a lot of movies out there where some actors just pick up a paycheck and don't put much into it This was not one of them. "Transformers" has somewhat of a cult following for our generation. RATING: Four balls. Unbelievable visual experience. However, it loses one ball for the way it ended. See it and you'll know why. 64 -(viow
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