National Treasure: Book of Secrets
I really enjoyed the first National Treasure so you could say I was looking forward to the sequel. It wasn’t as good, very few sequels are, but it wasn’t bad. It was still silly yet action packed bringing together the best of Indiana Jones and what The Da Vinci Code movie could have been. A solid 4 stars.

Rocket Science
This is a rather silly tale of a stuttering guy who joins the debate team to meet a girl who switches schools to win a state title; the guy then searches out a new mentor to beat the girl. It’s cute and simple, but very well done. 4 stars.

Eagle Eye
Evidently the government can see and hear everything going on in every room of every building in the country. Because of this, they — or someone else — can get anyone to do their bidding. At least, that’s what this movie want’s us to believe. It’s action packed but completely unbelievable. 3 stars.

Tropic Thunder
My opinion hasn’t really changed since the first time I saw Tropic Thunder. It’s hilarious, a very nice dig at Hollywood stereotypes, and overall very well done. It’s also interesting to note that Robert Downey Jr. got a dark horse Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor. This movie is worth 5 full stars.

Smoking Aces
This is one of those movies that’s so over the top and ridiculous that it’s hard not to watch whenever it’s on. It’s the story of a large number of assassins trying to kill a Vegas magician. It’s has fast paced as Crank and stars Jeremy Piven. What more could you want? 4 solid stars.

So Close
You might know this movie by it’s original title, Chik Yeung Tin Sai. No? Well, alright. It’s a film out of Hong Kong about a team of assassin sisters who are hunted by a police woman and an evil corporation. There’s not much more to it than that. A lot of gun play, martial arts, and Chinese actresses make up the story. 3 stars.

Jumper
I don’t know what I’d do without Netflix and HBO On Demand. The two go hand in hand and make up a majority of my movie watching. It was HBO On Demand where I picked up Jumper. There isn’t really a lot to say about this film about people who can teleport and the people who hunt them. It’s pretty simple actually. It stars Rachel Bilson which is nice though Anakin Skywalker Hayden Christensen doesn’t do much to add to the film. 3 stars.

Jumper

This is what you get when you search 1329 on Google Images.

What’s on ESPN (1329), ESPN2 (1330) or ESPNU (1331)? Oh, nothing. Alright, let’s move down to Discovery (1340) and Discovery HD Theater (1341). Alright, let’s skim through the rest of the Discovery channel partners (Science, History, TLC, etc) and check out Food Network (1359). The interesting thing is that I completely skip TBS (1312), TNT (1311), Disney (1335) and Family (1337) because they completely bore me — unless TBS is showing baseball which is almost never anymore.

Now, if I find nothing in this run, then I start to get a little adventurous. I’ll check HBO HD (1243) and the networks, NBC (1020) and ABC (1090) — who watches CBS? If still I find nothing worth watching, I’ll either turn on CNN (1324) or just return to ESPN.

I’m sure there are other, really great channels out there, but if I don’t get it in HD it’s really not worth watching — also it’s not worth the effort to find it on the guide. There are, of course, very few exceptions. The biggest one being The Soup which is on E! (65).

Is that wrong? Do you only watch a handful of channels? Let me know down under.

Generation Kill on HBO is the mini series of the year.

The mini-series, which concluded yesterday, is the story of Evan Wright and his time with 1st Recon Marines at the start of the Iraq War. What’s wonderful about the show is that there is no decreeable political message wrapped up in it. Instead, it’s a look at the marines in the unit and their dealing with life and death and, for some of them, the desire to simply kill. The characters are so personable that you can’t help but want to laugh with them when one tells a joke, grumble with them when an idiotic order comes down the line, or morn with them when something goes wrong.

Generation Kill follows HBO’s long standing tradition of producing quality programming. While I don’t exactly agree that it’s the film of the year, it’s eight hours long after all, it is hands down the mini series of the year.

Did you watch Generation Kill, or maybe read the book? Let me know what you think in the comments.

• killed his nephew, Christopher, after Chris caused a huge car accident after falling back into drugs.
• fell into a huge gambling debt.
• quit therapy because, after nearly seven years, Dr. Melfi (and the audience) finally realized Tony was playing her the whole time.
• had to pull his son, AJ, out of the pool after a botched attempt to kill himself.

But Tony’s biggest struggle arose out of the guy who runs the New York crew, Phil. Everything came to a head last week, when Phil ordered hits on Tony and his top guys. The week ended with Bobby, Tony’s brother-in-law, dead and Sil, his #2, on the edge of death in a hospital bed.Going into the final episode it was as if the series could end a few different ways:

1. Tony gets killed
2. Tony kills Phil and takes over New York
3. Tony gets tired of it all and, to save his family, turns to the Feds

What happened? None of the above. After a secret meeting with Phil’s crew, Tony agreed that they all should back off, for the sake of everyone involved. Everything back to normal, Tony still had Phil killed for the sake of all the trouble he caused. The series actually ended with The Soprano family sitting at a table in a diner, Tony constantly looking over his shoulder, and Meadow entering to join them and “Don’t Stop Believing” playing in the background. Not exactly what was expected by any means.There was a ton of symbolism in the episode that I’m too tired to figure out (there was a cat that constantly starred at Chris’ picture; every episode this season, save last week, started with Tony waking up, etc) but ultimately this series was a show about Tony’s family — The Sopranos. All the mafia stuff was just what the father happened to do for a living. I’m sure it’ll be debated for weeks as to why the ending was brilliant or why it sucked, but I suppose it’s fitting that when it’s all said and done, the family is together and seemingly happy.