The Black Dahlia

MPAA Rated – R
It’s 2:01 Long
A Preview by:
The Dude on the Right

The Black Dahlia
Movie Stats & Links
Starring: Josh Hartnett, Aaron Eckhart, Scarlett Johansson, Hilary Swank
MPAA Rated: R
Released By: Universal Pictures
Release Date: 2006
Directed By: Brian De Palma

He’s got the reputation. He’s got Academy Award winner Hilary Swank. He’s got up-and-quickly-comer Scarlett Johansson. And he’s got Josh Hartnett. Okay, hopefully Brian De Palma pulls the best out of Josh Hartnett, but the movie does have an interesting story to start, about what the film site says is “Inspired by the most notorious unsolved murder in California history.”

It’s the 1940’s and Bucky (Josh Hartnett) and Lee (Aaron Eckhart) are police officers. They’ve been assigned to cover the death of an actress, Elizabeth Short (Mia Kirshner), whose body has pretty much been mutilated, in the largest sense of the word, and there are tons of twists and turns that seem to involve everyone’s life. Some people are good, some people are dirty, and some people are totally obsessed, but isn’t every good murder mystery supposed to do just that?

Nothing against Josh Hartnett, but the trailer isn’t looking too promising for him, amongst the other casts in the lead roles, but I’ll still try to bump this up on my “must see” list because of Scarlett and Hilary.

That’s it for this preview! I’m The Dude on the Right!! L8R!!!

The Core

MPAA Rated – PG-13
It’s 2:15 Long
A Preview by:
The Dude on the Right

The Core
Movie Stats & Links
Starring: Aaron Eckhart, Nicole Leroux, Hilary Swank, Delroy Lindo, Stanley Tucci
MPAA Rated: PG-13
Released By: Paramount Pictures
Release Date: 2003
Directed By: Jon Amiel

This one almost seems like an “Armageddon” except the trip isn’t to an asteroid, this one is to the center of the earth. Hmm?

The story goes that the United States developed a super-weapon that could create a mysterious earthquake anywhere on earth. This was great for taking out the enemy, but in doing so it stopped the core of the earth from spinning (who knew it spun in the first place?). So what happens when the earth’s core stops spinning? Well, it seems that now the atmosphere gets all messed up, radiation or something can now get through, and “super storms” start appearing everywhere, destroying everything in their path. So what are we to do? Well duh, we’ve got to start the earth’s core spinning again. How? We build a crazy drilling contraption that will drill down to the core, leave some nuclear explosives, and just like that the earth will be saved.

Now I know the story sounds kinda stupid, but the movie does look like it has a little bit of promise, action, suspense, and a hot-looking Hilary Swank to its credit. I can almost bet someone doesn’t make it back from the trip to the core, but they’ll always be remembered as someone who saved life on earth.

That’s it for this preview! I’m The Dude on the Right!! L8R!!!

Amelia

MPAA Rated – PG
It’s 1:51 Long
A Blu-ray Review by:
The Dude on the Right

Amelia
Movie Stats & Links
Starring: Hilary Swank, Richard Gere, Ewan McGregor
MPAA Rated: PG
Released By: Twentieth Century FoxHome Entertainment
Kiddie Movie: Maybe girls who want to fly, but it’s kind of slow.
Date Movie: My BFF fell asleep.
Gratuitous Sex: There are undertones of Amelia being a lesbian but it turns out she is a hussy. Sadly there isn’t too much hussy-dom
Gratuitous Violence: Nah.
Action: Nah.
Laughs: There is a chuckle or two.
Memorable Scene: Sadly it’s on the “Deleted Scenes” section of the Blu-ray.
Memorable Quote: “You missed it, though. It’s over there.”
Directed By: Mira Nair
Cool Thinks About the DVD: The Blu-ray extras give some in-depth looks at the making of, and are probably a better synopsis of the movie without sitting through the nearly two hour movie.

As I was watching the extras on the Blu-ray of “Amelia” there was a deleted scene that I liked. I thought it encompassed the spirit of Amelia Earhart, it was short, to the point, and funny, and there it was, on the “Deleted Scene” portion of the Blu-ray. I guess such is my end liking of “Amelia.” Let’s get to the story, first.

“Amelia” doesn’t give many people what they might want from an a movie about Amelia Earhart (played by Hilary Swank), namely the crazy theories as to what really ended up happening to Amelia. Sure, there is the ending, recreating the extent of what people seem to know, and it’s pretty simple in the end run, but this movie is really about the life of Amelia, her passion for flying, her love life, and some of the issues a woman might have, being strong-willed in the time when flying was supposed to be mostly for men. The problem is that the movie was so over the place, trying to tell so much of her story that for the most part I was just bored and wondered how they were going to bring the movie back to its core – Amelia Earhart. The movie at times would shift to more about George Putnam (Richard Gere), her husband, than Amelia, then it would shift to Gene Vidal (Ewan McGregor), the dude she had a fling with, and then you would learn something else about Amelia. As my BFF said to me as we were watching it, “This movie is just all over the place.”

The thing is, I wanted to like “Amelia,” I really did. It was one of those movies that when it came to the theaters I thought it would have been a nice to see on the big screen, I think both Hilary Swank and Richard Gere can be great on screen, so I was somewhat excited when I popped the Blu-ray into the player at the dude-pad and snuggled with my BFF, but when she fell asleep, and I kept looking at the counter on the Blu-ray player, I knew there was trouble. It was like the movie couldn’t figure if it wanted to be a straight biopic, if it wanted to be a nice period piece, or if it wanted to just look beautiful (and it did, so I will say, that for the beautifulness of the scenery, it’s a good film), but in the end my BFF had it right, the movie was just all over the place, and for me it didn’t stick to its core, what I thought would have really made the movie, and that was the spirit brought by Amelia Earhart, in the deleted scene “Arrival in Wales.”

I guess if you are looking for a movie that looks beautiful I would recommend “Amelia,” and it does give some looks at the life of the aviatrix, and it is a safe movie, being only rated PG, but things are slow, so be ready for it, and maybe you’ll like the movie more than I did. 1 ½ stars out of 5 stars for “Amelia.”

As far as extras, there are quite a few, many that actually give a better look at the life of Amelia Earhart more than the actual “making” of the movie, and like I said, there is one deleted scene, “Arrival in Wales,” that I thought was perfect, told the story, showed the spunk, and had the rest of the movie kept to the core of that scene, I think I would have loved the film.

That’s it for this one! I’m The Dude on the Right!! L8R!!!