Alright, after my last movie night, or should I say movie day, of watching all three of the extended edition Lord of the Rings movies back to back, I am doing it again. This time, I am only picking one of the movies, and my guests will decide on the second (no 3rd this time)...

I am starting with Serenity. The movie spin off of the TV series (can it really be called a series if it only made it 1 season) Firefly. I really liked the Firefly shows, as did the people coming over, and oddly enough, I didn't see Serenity in the theater, so it will be new to me. Hope that it is good.

So now for movie #2...

The choices are:

Mr. & Mrs. Smith (I've seen it. Oddly I liked it, even though many don't).

Fantastic 4 (Heard that it is pretty cheesy, but it was a gift from my wife, so I have to put it on the list).

War of the Worlds (Mixed reviews here).

Something else?

It will be fun no matter what the flick is, but has anyone here had their friends pick a real bomb to watch?

Mr. & Mrs. Smith I loved. Fantastic 4, watch it if you want your guests to go to sleep (thumbs way down) War of the Worlds: I enjoyed it for the effects and great sound , story line kinda off, but who cares when things are blowing up real loud. I really enjoyed Serenity, never saw the series. Have a great night.

Hey Nick, glad to see ya back my friend.

ps: after you got your job with Lexmark, we have an opening on my team for a server architect, vmware and all, it may not be to late..

I just saw Fantastic Four on Tuesday (got it for Christmas)... and it was (as the kids say) ass.

Reed Richards is too insecure (and young)... Johnny Storm is too old... Sue Storm is too ethnic... only Michael Chiklis as The Thing made a good jump from pulp to screen... but even then, the costume made him look more like an orange, lumpy ninja turtle than the rockhead I remember from my childhood.

The story - I've steeped in deeper puddles, the plot twists are so telegraphed they come by Pony Express. I wasn't a big FF fan as a kid... was more into X-Men and all the tie-ins (New Mutants, X-Factor, etc) but I really think Stan Lee and Jack Kirby turned their first child out on the street on this one.

Bren R.

OK. So watch Fantastic Four if I am having trouble sleeping. Got it...

Maybe I'll save that in case they try to force a 3rd movie.

Wait, maybe not. Then they would fall asleep here, and I would have to make them breakfast on Saturday...

Thanks for the heads up on the Fantastic Flop...

Oh, Sirquack.... I've been more of a lurker around here lately. My new job has kept me out of town for a few weeks, and when I am home, I have been super busy.

Lexmark has been treating me right. Too bad Iowa Health (who has a contract with Lexmark for support) isn't better. We'll get it ironed out...

If you really enjoyed Serenity then DEFINITELY buy the Firefly series DVD. I actually thought the tv shows were better than the movie.

yep, totally agree about F4. It's sad when the best part of the movie was when Stan Lee showed up as the mailman!

amen on the Firefly/Serenity! I got hooked on that after I borrowed the series from my boss. Funny thing, the movie had some space flying sequences that I thought was better than Revenge of the Sith. But, Wash!?!? WTF!?!?!

I started watching Firefly because I wanted to see Serenity in the movie theater, but never got through all of them before it went out of the theaters. I know that you don't HAVE to watch the TV series to jump into the movie, but still... I REALLY enjoyed the Firefly shows. I hope that SciFi picks up the TV show (besides the current re-runs) and they start making them again. There are so many story lines that it could take.

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yep, totally agree about F4. It's sad when the best part of the movie was when Stan Lee showed up as the mailman!

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I was hoping it would go something more like this...

"Here's your mail, Dr. Richards..."
<<Reed then proceeds to pummel him for the rest of the movie for having sold out his beloved characters to the film school hack that should have been fetchin' coffee rather than reviewing dailies>>

When your last name is Story, you'd think you'd be able to tell one.

Bren R.

You might try "Final Fantasy The Spirits Within" as a second or perhaps as the long animation prelude to Serenity. I watched the Firefly series when it was on TV and really liked it, but haven't seen Serenity yet.

I think Final Fantasy was another of those quirky, twisted Sci-Fi movies and a landmark animation film. However, my wife played through all of the Final Fantasy games, and we have some grasp of Japanese culture to help interpret what can be an occasionally confusing movie so perhaps it's not for everyone. I'm anxiously awaiting the release of "Final Fantasy VII Advent Children" here in the USA. I saw the Japanese version and thought it was pretty good, but it required some narrative from my wife who played the game.

Final Fantasy was pretty good. I forgot all about that one.

Well, anyway, movie night is over. We only watched one movie (Serenity)... It was very good. A few surprise twists. We had one person show up late, so we waited to start the movie, and while people waited, they played pinball and my arcade machine, which off course took a bit to pull them away from to watch the movie. We also had pizza delivered, so there was a delay there too. After Serenity, people hit the arcade and pinabll again, and we got some snow today, and some people had an hour drive home, so they wanted to get on the road before it got too late, so once the first couple of people left, everyone cleared out...

I did have a couple people actually REQUEST to watch Fantastic 4 if there was more time, but that never happened...

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I did have a couple people actually REQUEST to watch Fantastic 4 if there was more time, but that never happened...

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Could have given them the Reader's Digest version... wiped your a** with a FF comic, wrapped it around your shoe, and kicked them square in the bearings.

Bren R.

yeah, i remember a lot of talk on the movie geek sites when Tim Story was announced as the director about how underqualified he was to do that flick. "Told you so!" is such a fun phrase to use. in my defense the version i bought came with a cd-rom of metric butt-ton of old FF comics (which really was the main reason i bought it! )