The romantic comedy: Boys meets girl. Boy gets in argument with girl. Boy reunites with girl. Movie ends. Every movie is the same, only with different characters and a slightly modified hook. Some are better than others and legitimately entertaining. But in the end, they’re all predictable and unoriginal. So when (500) Days of Summer promises to be something different, you have to be intrigued – and skeptical.

Read the rest of my 500 Days of Summer movie review.

Read the rest of the Homecoming movie review.

Read the rest of the Harry Potter movie review.

As an introduction, I am a Star Trek fan. I am not, however, a Trekkie. I don’t dress up, I don’t know the science behind warp drive and I can’t speak Klingon. I make fun of Trekkies, but I also have enjoyed all of the television series save for “Enterprise” and most of the movies. I watch both Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan and Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country at least twice a year, and I am slugging my way through the original series, of which I haven’t seen every episode.

Read the rest of the Star Trek movie review.

Battlestar Galactica

Caprica is set 50 years before BSG on Caprica, which in only a few decades will be obliterated by Cylon nuclear weapons. The show, apparently, will focus on political, religious and moral issues through the eyes of two families – led by Daniel Graystone, a super-rich genius who is on the verge of recreating life (read: Cylons) and an outsider with a powerful past, Joseph Adama. Similar to today’s issues, the seemingly bright and shiny civilization of Caprica is cracked with questionable ethics, corporate greed and personal ambition that, as we all know, will eventually lead to their downfall.

Whether BSG fans – myself included – stick around rests entirely on the quality of this new show, which doesn’t officially debut until 2010. However, Sci-Fi smartly – both to whet appetites and make a few million in the process – will release the pilot episode of Caprica on Tuesday, April 21, 2009.

The pilot episode both complements BSG and differs from it, and does just enough to keep me wanting more. The way the story flows, the way the show looks and the underlying moral issues that accompany the plot ring similar to BSG, and it is these qualities that should keep fans engaged, at least in the beginning.

And yet, Caprica is strange – strange enough that not all fans are going to stick around. BSG was popular not only because of its overall quality but because it succeeded in being a science fiction show without relying heavily on science fiction. People who wanted good drama and action – but not all the geeky stuff that usually accompanies sci-fi shows – were able to watch BSG, and not as a guilty pleasure. Furthermore, the show was filled with space battles and other violence.

Caprica, on the other hand, feels more futuristic and sci-fi-y, despite being a prequel. While many things don’t look that much different from today, the characters carry around computers on “pieces of paper” and are able to log into holodeck-esque worlds with little headsets. While BSG explained away the lack of technology with Adama’s reluctance to be networked to the grid, Caprica does feel a bit like the Star Wars prequels – things were much more advanced in the past.

But it’s not the gizmos that may turn some fans off. Much of the pilot episode revolves around a virtual world where Graystone discovers that his daughter – a computer genius who was murdered in a terrorist explosion by a group that accepts only one true God – has installed a “copy” of herself. In this world, his daughter exists with all her memories, characteristics and flaws – just without a body. But Graystone, who has been working on creating cyborgs, realizes that his daughter may have figured out the missing link – and that he can bring her back. However, the bigger question remains: can he bring back her soul, and even if he can, should he?

Caprica raises some very interesting questions, and it’s these questions that will drive the show going forward. And yet, dabbling with the reincarnation of one’s daughter is quite a bit different than BSG, which despite all the strange things that happened always tended to be grounded in reality (except for the fate of Starbuck, which I’m still scratching my head over). Will the average BSG fan accept this very different environment that is Caprica? I’m not sure.

As for me, I liked the pilot episode, but didn’t love it. The acting is strong, and I liked the characters. The show looks great, though the producers are going to struggle with the visual effects as it’s going to be much harder to gloss over a TV budget in daylight, versus the perpetual darkness that BSG benefited from. The train explosion could have been done better. Overall, though, the producers have done a good job of creating a show that is similar in appearance and delivery to its predecessor and yet vastly different in its core focus.

Unfortunately, the pilot episode didn’t blow me away. It sets the stage, but it’s unclear how things are going to unfold, how suspenseful things are going to be and what other characters are going to be introduced. The number of likable supporting characters is next to zero, and even the leads are hardly protagonists; Graystone is a bit crazy, and Adama works for mobsters. Whereas BSG worked in the grays as the show went along, Caprica starts out with no redeeming characters. If Caprica is just going to be a talky drama with political maneuverings and religious questions, it could get old quickly; if it ends up being a little more exciting than that – perhaps like Damages – then it has potential. The pilot episode just doesn’t answer these questions.

The Caprica pilot is worth seeing, but it is going to have to show the audience what we should expect early on to keep people around. It looks to be an interesting show, but without a genocidal war raging on in every episode, it has the potential to lose audiences quickly, especially given that it is on the Sci-Fi Channel, a place even I dared to tread only on Friday nights at 10pm.

In other words: time will tell. The pilot episode is enough to lure me along, and yet not enough to hook me.

And only a few months later, A&E’s The Beast has risen from the ashes to take The Shield’s place. Or at least try.

The Beast plays out like a down-and-dirty version of the Chris Cooper movie Breach mixed with a less captivating Training Day; Travis Fimmel stars as Jake, a young, eager cop who has been recruited to partner with Charles Barker (Patrick Swayze). Just as in Training Day, Jake is green around the edges and has a lot to learn when pitted against Charles, who will cross the line to accomplish the mission. SPOILER ALERT: It isn’t long, though, before Jake is confronted with a team of officials who inform him that he has been selected to spy on Charles, given the suspicion that the man is dirty.

Surprisingly, it isn’t Swayze who has the lead but Fimmel; the narrative stays focused on Jake much more than Charles. Nevertheless, Fimmel holds his own and quickly proves that he can carry the show, and one has to wonder, given Swayze’s dire circumstances, that this isn’t completely coincidental. On the flip side, it’s Swayze who will draw audiences in and keep them there, as he delivers his best performance in years – though that isn’t hard, since no one has seen him in years. That fact aside, Swayze growls his way through scene to scene with satisfying brutality, though those expecting Denzel Washington-esque screen chewing should look elsewhere. As good as Trimmel is, this show will live and die with Swayze – and I sincerely hope that doesn’t turn into a literal statement.

Neither the pilot episode or Episode 2, titled Two Choices, blew me away; as intense as Swayze is, that intensity doesn’t always resonate through the show itself. Again, one can’t help but compare The Beast to The Shield, and having grown to love that show over seven seasons, it’s hard to see the same quality here. Nevertheless, only two episodes have passed and both are good enough to give it a few more chances.

In other words, it has potential.

Interestingly, one of the most intriguing aspects of the show is the relationship between Jake and his neighbor Rose, played by the beautiful Lindsay Pulsipher. The relationship serves as a good antithesis to the rest of the show, and I liked the prospect of the issues the couple is going to face in the future. Still, I think the writers jumped the gun by removing much of their conflict by the second episode.

The Beast, which premieres Thursday, January 15th at 10pm ET/PT on A&E hasn’t won me over, but it’s intriguing enough to give it a little time. It’s sad to think that this may be Patrick Swayze’s final hurrah, but if it is, it is a commendable way to go out. The show maybe similar to bigger and better things, but Swayze’s performance is top notch.

Nevertheless, I finally made my way to see the Sex and the City movie, and it was pretty good. In fact, I thought it stayed extremely loyal to the TV show (it probably helps that the writer/director/executive producer of the show is also the writer and director of the movie) and managed to be just as funny as any individual episode.

And, to be blunt, I am straight and single. I didn’t go see Sex and the City because my girlfriend dragged me to it, and I didn’t see it because of my sexual orientation. Yes, I was one of the few single straight guys in the audience – perhaps the only one.

Read my full Sex and the City movie review.

I haven’t seen the original Funny Games, so thankfully I was able to enjoy this one a lot. It is depraved, disturbing and shocking – read my Funny Games movie review here.

The movie, directed and co-written by François Girard, is a sweeping, movie drama that spans the violin’s creation centuries ago to a modern day auction where the violin is expected to fetch millions of dollars. The violin survives burials, gunshots, affairs, gypsies, communist China and more and tells the stories of its various owners, from the woman who finds that her husband is more fascinated by the unique properties of the violin than by her to the blind nationalism in China that distrusts the West, including Western music.

Having watched the film for a second time – and having built the movie up in my head for nearly ten years – The Red Violin isn’t quite as captivating as I remember it, but it’s still a very good drama with an incredible score and great acting, highlighted by Samuel L. Jackson.

Lionsgate is re-releasing the film on DVD, this time as the first entry in The Meridian Collection. Along with another film, Diva, The Meridian Collection is set to showcase Lionsgate’s top films in their library. As one might expect, The Meridian Collection is just an excuse to resell DVDs with minimal effort – and to make money, nothing more.

The Red Violin DVD comes equipped with a couple of special features, including:

• An audio commentary with Girard and co-writer Don McKellar
• “The Oscar-Winning Chaconne” – This is an examination of how composer John Corigiliano went about scoring the film. Unlike most films, where the score is added at the end, the score had to built into the screenplay from the beginning as the film often shows complicated finger movements on screen. This is a pretty interesting feature.
• “The Auction Block,” which explains the fascination with Stradivarius violins and includes interviews with the woman who currently owns and plays the violin that the film is based upon.

And that’s it. The Meridian Collection doesn’t offer a lot of new bonus features – all it does is get a Lionsgate product back in front of audience’s eyes. Of course, when the film is something like The Red Violin, a quality picture that few people have seen, that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

Read my full Indiana Jones 4 review here.