Pramas Blue

2/13/02 5:03pm
Movie Reviews

During vacation, I went to go see a couple of movies. Although I saw them both back in December, I am going to give you my opinion of them, why they were good, why they were bad. My rating system will be on a scale of 0-5 with 5 being the highest. I base my ratings on plot and acting(shitty acting and a poor plot ruin a movie, see all-time worst movie, Jeepers Creepers as an example), can I watch it again, will I buy it when it comes out as a dvd?(M. Night Shymann movies such as The Sixth Sense and Unbreakable score low in that category), and most of all, my overall enjoyment of watching the movie(Did I like it?? Was it bored?? etc.) So without further ado. Let's try this out:

Ocean's Eleven

Comedy, Action/Adventure and Crime/Gangster 1 hr. 57 min. Dapper Danny Ocean (GEORGE CLOONEY) is a man of action. Less than 24 hours into his parole from a New Jersey penitentiary, the wry, charismatic thief is already rolling out his next plan. Following three rules — don't hurt anybody, don't steal from anyone who doesn't deserve it, and play the game like you've got nothing to lose — Danny orchestrates the most sophisticated, elaborate casino heist in history. In one night, Danny's handpicked 11-man crew of specialists — including an ace card sharp (BRAD PITT), a master pickpocket (MATT DAMON) and a demolition genius (DON CHEADLE) — will attempt to steal over $150 million from three Las Vegas casinos owned by Terry Benedict (ANDY GARCIA), the elegant, ruthless entrepreneur who just happens to be dating Danny's ex-wife Tess (JULIA ROBERTS). (Summary provided by Yahoo.com)

Strenghts: Good plot, funny moments, strong cast. Top-tier stars such as George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Matt Damon, and Julia Roberts. Middle-tier stars to fill out Clooney's group. A top-tier star is someone you recognize right away. Someone you go see movies just to see them in it. A middle-tier star is one you don't know his/her name, but you like the characters they've played before, and you know what movies they've been in.
Weaknesses: None, but just didn't have enough to make the pantheon of 5-star range.

Final Rating: 4/5 stars

b>Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring

Action/Adventure and Drama 2 hrs. 58 min. Set in mythic pre-historic times, a young hobbit named Frodo Baggins inherits a magic ring from his elderly cousin Bilbo. Wise to the powers that the magic ring holds, the dark Lord Sauron wants it, knowing it will enable him to enslave the people of Middle Earth. In his effort to thwart Sauron, Frodo recruits the fellowship of a wizard, an elf, a dwarf and others on a mission to destroy the ring by casting it into the volcanic fires in the Crack of Doom. However, the ring unleashes its own power as a result of the struggle.... (Summary provided by Yahoo.com)

(Keep in mind that I have never read the books. I don't know anything about the series, it was fresh for me)
Strenghts: My favorite thing was the beautiful scenery and computer-generated monsters. Set the plot for the next movie. Good job with some of the characters. I liked those demons that was chasing around Froto(sp?)
Weaknesses: Didn't enjoy this movie as much as I thought I would. The length was terrible. It would have benefited greatly if it was a half-hour shorter. I was just waiting for it to end. They go in the snow covered mountains, cross a river, underground with orcs, in a forest...It just kept going. Froto was a pussy, but my roommate tells me, he's supposed to be, he's a hobbit. Wondering if their are gay hobbits, because the hobbit played by Sean Astin(Rudy) sure seemed gay to me. On another note, did they have to make Sean Astin smaller than he already is to play a hobbit??? But, I digress. Slow-paced. I do think the other two will be better though.

Final Rating: 3/5 stars

Reason #245 why my mom is sometimes "out of the loop": I saw Lord of the Rings with my family, my mom seriously thought that Lord of the Rings was a gymnastics movie! She wasn't pleasantly surprised about what was on the movie screen. "It would have been much better as a gymnastics movie!"

2/8/02 9:03pm
The Pats Win it All Baby!!!

That's right my friends. My first New England championship that I will remember watching. I don't want to get into it too much. You can read a Sports Illustrated issue. They do a much better job than I do. What I want to talk about today is the parade they had in Boston the following day. I went with Tim Lewis, and Tim was kind enough to do a write-up on what happened. That's what I like to see. I want Pramas.com to be a community where anyone can write in and rant about anything. Buy, anyone, without further ado, here is Tim's rant on what happened that day:

How about that victory parade. I feel bad for anyone that missed out on it because your probably not going to be able to experience anything like that again even if they win again next year. 1.2 or 1.5 million people all in one area for one reason. To congratulate their World Champion Patriots. Everything went very smoothly considering how many people were standing out there for hours in the freezing cold. Well almost everything.

Monday night I watched the news and they said don’t drive into Boston there will be plenty of public transportation. Absolutely NOT! Around 2:00 when the pep rally ended Pat and myself headed towards North Station to go home along with the 100,000 other people that thought they were going home. You would think that it wouldn’t be that bad there because there would surely be some police there doing crowd control. None What SO-EVER! This turned into a very hostile enviroment really quick.

We arrived at N. Station around 2:30. It took us about 10 minutes to get inside and to dunkin donuts right after the entrance. There were no tracks announced for trains yet so it was pretty calm. Well considering that we were packed in so tight nobody could move it was calm. Around 2:45 tracks were announced for trains going to Haverill and S. Acton on tracks 5 and 10. Now how do people get to their trains. They pushed and then people pushed back. The 3:10 to Lowell was not announced yet be we guessed it would be track 7. So we started to make the very long journey there. When we got by dunkins and towards track 11 it became intense. Lots of pushing and getting squished. Around 2:55 track 2 was announced for the train leaving for Lowell. This my friends is when all hell broke loose. The key to getting through the crowd was hitting the holes hard and fast. It was working out pretty well until we go to track 8. The people that were coming in from the other entrance were trying to get towards 10 and we were trying to get to 2. Nobody was giving up any ground. We were stuck there for a solid 10 minutes. After lots of shoving and we made it through. After track 7 there was no crowd so we were able to walk easily to track 2. We got there and the train was full. This is when tempers started to flare. One man went off on the conductor swearing and yelling. We to get some food and figure out a game plan for the next train at 4:10. On our way out we overheard on a couple of police officers radios that they were to head to track 2 immediately.

After eating we came back and decided we would try the other entrance. Once again it was very calm inside because there were no tracks announced. We made our way around track 7 and 8 and decided we would get a good jump to any track they announced for lowell. I’m guessing a lot of the people that were in there couldn’t get on their trains last hour so they were already very pissed. They announced Lowell and Newbury Port and the same time. Lowell was track 6. I’m not sure were Newbury Port was. The crowd was very intense and I was focussing all my attention and energy on getting to track 6. I would describe the situation as nothing but a Brujaja. The shoving and pushing was very intense. I lost pat somwhere in the crowd. He seemed to get through before the worst of it started happening. It all started when two parents started screaming to stop pushing there are little kids here and they can’t breathe. They then proceded to shove people away from there kids. By this time the kids were bawling there eyes out and nobody really seemed to care. At this point people pushed even harder. One lady was trying to run through shoving people out of the way until she got near me. She pushed some spanish girl and it was all over. They shoved each other back in forth screaming at each other on the top of their lungs, both of them in tears. At this time I saw at least 2 elderly people crying and being shoved around the crowd. I counted at least 5 people crying withing a 5 foot radius of me. At this point I said fuck it and shoved, pushed, swim moved my way through the crowd. Reggie White would have been proud. I made it to track 6 and found pat waiting by the train. We started one track away and the train was already standing room only in almost all the cars. The conductor informed us there were seats in the first car. We found seats and slept most of the way home after one of the most intense situations I have ever been in. After today I gained a huge amount of respect for defensive and offensive linemen. I was tired after just fighting through the crowd for a half hour. The shape and strength those men must be in to fight like that for a 60 minute game is unbelievable. I must say though it was a GREAT DAY!