One major release today?
Its rare that only one movie comes out on a Friday.
But I guess that’s all you get.

I bet he whines about doctors trying to kill him.

Awake – Hayden Christensen experiences anesthetic awareness during his heart surgery. He hears the doctors conspiring to screw up on purpose while they think he is passed out. Jessica Alba plays his wife who must make some decisions involving the life of her husband.

In limited release is The Savages about 2 siblings (Laura Linney & Philip Seymour Hoffman) who reunite to care for their dying father.

Recently, Frank was telling me a story about how he felt he failed as a human being. Apparently while waiting for the bus in the rain, he watched some old guy with one leg drop a shopping cart full of food for the homeless into the street. He didn’t help until he saw some other woman helping out the man. At least he felt bad about it, but I’m sure he’ll have his side of the story in the comments section in due time.

So anyway, today I ran out to Target to pick up some Christmas gifts. I went to the express lane since I only had two items to purchase. As I’m waiting for the customer ahead of me, I notice behind me is an older lady who had her hands full of items. She didn’t have a cart and looked like she was about to drop everything. When it was my turn I told her to go ahead, and she was thankful. Even the miserable customer service person looked surprised.

Basically, when I saw the old woman looking like she was about to drop everything, I couldn’t help but remember Frank’s story about the old man with one leg. Seeing her with all those items immediately gave me visions of canned corn and peas rolling around in the street.

Not much of a moral to this story aside from the fact that we can learn from other people’s mistakes. Considering it’s the Christmas Season, there are going to be plenty of angry people out there, try not to be one of them. An act of kindness will go a long way during this hectic time.

Hot Rod – from the Dudes who bring you SNL Digital Shorts, originating as The Lonely Island comedy group comes a unique comedy about a wannabe stuntman who arranges an impossible stunt to raise money for his dying stepfather. Starring Andy Samberg, Isla Fisher, and Ian McShane among others.

Who’s Your Caddy – an Atlanta rap star (Big Boi of OutKast fame) tries joining a snooty country club. He is denied by the uptight president (Jeffrey Jones) so they play a round of golf to decide the outcome.

Skin Walkers - a young boy is in between two groups of battling werewolves. One group must protect him and the other group is trying to kill him. The mother must find out why her son is in the middle of this battle of epic proportions.

You have to hand it to Nintendo, because I’m at the point where I believe they seriously have figured out a way to print money. For example, let us take a look at their latest invention, The Zapper. The Zapper is nothing more than a piece of plastic that magically turns your remote and nunchuck into a gun. It’s supposed to be a light gun, but it’s really just smoke and mirrors, as your remote doesn’t function any different with it. For those of us smart enough to figure that out, Nintendo has attempted to sweeten the deal by packing it with a down and dirty mini-game called Link’s Crossbow Training. Well it worked, and I bought one. Unsuspecting people will snatch it up, hardcore fans of the Zelda series will have a tough time saying no, and at 20 bucks, it makes for a perfect gift to give out for the holidays. Yes, Nintendo has indeed figured out how to print money, and its bloody brilliant.

Upon booting up Crossbow Training, it is painfully obvious that the Nippon Giant spent close to zero dollars creating the game. The game runs off the Twilight Princess engine, using all of its art assets, stage layouts, and even music. Aside from a couple of new menus, and a music track or two, people who have played Twilight Princess have seen all of this before.

Crossbow Training takes Link through 9 stages, each consisting of 3 courses, where the player must shoot as much stuff possible. There are also three different game play types, one which is an on rails shooter, the second keeps the player in place but allows them to look where ever they want, and the third has Link running and gunning third person style. All of this can be played through in about an hour, but score crazed players will want to go back and perfect their runs trying to get a platinum medal for all 9 stages.

I look delicious!

It’s a special Wednesday edition of theater releases.
Movies hit theaters today due to the holiday coming up.
Lets just get right into this week.

Not to be confused with the Bret The Hitman Hart documentary.

Hitman – based on the best selling video game comes the story of Agent 47 (Timoth Olyphant) who has been trained as an assassin. When he is setup during a political takeover, Agent 47 tries to find out who is trying to take him out, and why?

They must see something over there! —>

Live Free or Die Hard – Bruce Willis returns as John McClane in Die Hard 4. This time a technological terrorist attack hits the city. Willis along with new hacker friend, Justin Long, must once again save the day while throwing out witty one liners. Action packed!

The Santa Clause 3: The Escape Clause – Tim Allen is still going strong as Santa Claus. But now while having family problems, wishes he never was Santa. The jealous Jack Frost (Martin Short) takes advantage of a little known escape clause in the Santa contract that allows them to go back in time to change the fateful night Tim became Santa.

Hairspray – a musical based in 1962 which is a remake of an 1980s John Waters movie. It’s about a girl who dreams of dancing on national television. Her chance arrives and she shoots into stardom. John Travolta stars as the mother, Michell Pfeiffer as the stage manager, and Zac Effron as the love interest.

Super Mario Galaxy is great, amazing, fantastic, and the best piece of software available on Wii. That is, according to all of the positive reviews coming in from all the different media outlets. A quick look at Metacritic and you’ll see Galaxy is the highest rated game of the year. A look over at Game Rankings points out that it is the highest rated game of all time. As you can see, Galaxy has basically lived up to all of the hype.

The last thing you probably want to do is read another review about the game, but I can’t help myself, and since I’m fresh off finishing the game I figured I’d leave my thoughts on the experience. Like all of the positive reviews, I completely agree with them, and I probably haven’t loved a game this much since I first played through Ocarina of Time.

When I first started playing through Galaxy, about an hour or two in it hit me that the world layouts were very linear compared to Super Mario 64 and Super Mario Sunshine. In Galaxy, there isn‘t really much running around and just discovering stars. When starting a stage, there is a clear path and goal to get the next star. At first I was slightly disappointed by this design choice, but roughly halfway through it dawned on me that this choice was for the better.

An animated fantasy tale.
A magical toy store.
A lifetime love story.
Take a looksie.

Animated Jolie ass is fine with me.

Beowulf – a motion capture animation film starring Ray Winstone as BEOWULF! He must save his people from a huge monster named Grendel (Crispin Glover) only to feel the wrath of the monster’s mother (Angelina Jolie). I AM BEOWULF!

Dustin Wonka and the Toy Factory

Shrek the Third – the third installment in the Shrek series deals with Shrek (Mike Myers) having to take over as King when the current King (John Cleese) falls ill. He doesn’t want to be King so he sets out with Donkey (Eddie Murphy) and Puss (Antonio Banderas) in search of the nearest relative, Arthur (Justin Timberlake). Tons of other voice actors too.

Ocean’s Thirteen – The gang is back together again this time with Ocean’s Eleven bad guy Andy Garcia joining to help screw over the man that screwed over one of their own. The baddie is Al Pacino and Danny Ocean’s crew plan to bankrupt him on the night his new hotel opens.

Paris, Je T’aime – translated to Paris, I Love You, is a unique piece of work that deals with love in the city of Paris, France. It’s unique because the film contains twenty different filmmakers (Gus Van Sant, Wes Craven, Alexander Payne, Coen Brothers, etc…) putting their own touch on different segments of the movie.