This is the second and last installment in Quentin Tarantino’s Kill Bill epic. The basic premise is that Beatrix Kiddo is out to avenge the death of her fiancee and the attempt on her life during a dress rehearsal for her wedding four years earlier. In Kill Bill 1 Beatrix settled the score with 1/2 of the hit squad. Now she’s going back to finish the job and kill Bill, the mastermind of the murder operation.

Here’s what works really well about this film.

1) The music – not only is the soundtrack excellent on it’s own right, the score works perfectly with every scene.

2) The character development – Quentin Tarantino has come a long way in this regard. 10 years ago his character development hinged on long rambling tracts of dialogue. What differentiated one character from another in his earlier work was what they said – or their particular approach to an argument. But this time out he developed a number of very memorable and discrete characters. It’s more subtle but welcome.

3) Acting – the acting here is top shelf. He’s never gotten better performances out of his actors.

4) Cinematography – again he’s progressed tremendously. The camera moves where and when it needs to.

5) Fight sequences – the martial arts work is great.

6) Basic premise – he makes the revenge motive work here and develops it credibly.

Here’s two areas that missed the mark

1) The final confrontation is almost anti-climatic and at points unbelievable. This detracted from the ending.

2) Before the final confrontation there’s a very distinct moment where the entire movie jumps the shark. It’s a big painful lurch when the action should be building up to a strong finish. Unfortunately the film never recovers from that moment.

The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind proves that Jim Carrey is an acting genius. Whether it be on a comic or artistic level, the man delivers. He’s a risk taker who not just takes the big risks, somehow makes them look easy.

The story is slightly less complicated than the title. Both partners in a relationship elect to have a surgical procedure to remove all memories of the other person. The rub is the operation fails for one of them and they want the other person back. Your typical love story.

boy: I remember when we walked barefoot on the sands of Montuak by candle light. Later I served you strawberries and wine from a gold chalice.

girl: And you are?

The bulk of the movie steps through the many connected and distorted memories of their days together, bringing the good and bad elements of their relationship into perspective.

It’s told in non linear fashion, read – flashback, flash forward, flash left, flashlight. Look out behind you! The director is loose in the theater with the editing machine and license to jump through space and time! Is the end the beginning or is the beginning the end?

Despite the winding story structure, ESOTSM comes together. That does not mean it’s the easiest thing to follow. ESOTSM is a film more than it’s a movie, which by my definition means there is a message.

If you like offbeat films, give this one a whirl. Definitely worth a DVD purchase.

OK superhero fans, Hellboy is in the house! Never heard of Hellboy? Frightened by his massive red body and filed down horns? Yep, me too.

Let’s get to know him a bit better. Here’s some points of interest.

1) He loves cats.

2) He eats everything.

3) He loves a girl who can’t decide whether to love him back.

4) He has father issues.

Sound like anyone you know? See, underneath the red body and horns, Hellboy is just an average American who drinks Bud Light and wears leather pants with an extra hole for his nine foot tail. Also he lives in a fortified lair. But otherwise, Hellboy just like you or me.

The bottom line is, Hellboy works on the big screen. He works and works to save us from the forces of chaos and “things that go bump in the night”. The effects are good, the action is tight and the dialog does what it has to. Take note, the eye candy factor is high.

Hellboy is worth seeing, especially if you like comic book movies. It’s an experience worth the full price ticket.

The wife and I went to see Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind last night. I’ll put the review up later. Let’s do a segue into the main action here…

See the wife didn’t care one way or another about going to the film. Beside her lack of interest, everything seemed aligned against us too, we left late, got there late, had to get money in transit. We had the one minute – do you not want to go? since when do you care about what I want? argument. This was all before we got out of the car. Then at the theater, the special needs attendant was selling tickets, which is fine except he’s a little bit slower than the some of the other attendants and like I mentioned we were late. But I’m thinking karma so I behave and breathe into my tardiness.

But the gaggle of 12 year old girls pretending they were 13 tried my patience. True, they had the first position in the line when we got there but as a group they fought about why they were there in the first place. “oh my god what are we going to see?” – “i’m 13!” – “No! you’re 12!” – “Who said I’m fat?” type distractions provided an opportunity for customers who wanted concessions, because the ticket guy didn’t want to listen to the girl school argument any more than anyone else, so he left the ticket line to scoop popcorn.

So we get our tickets and now the film is in progress. And there’s something horribly wrong with the screen, because it’s dark in the theater. Oh there’s a moving picture show going on, but parts of the screen are a nice study in dark shadows. For a second I think, hmm, it’s art film, they like to do weird things. And even though we missed about 2 minutes it was clear this wasn’t going to be a linear story. Maybe the shadow dancing is an import part of the plot.

Five minutes later the manager comes in and apologizes for the burnt bulb and asks everyone if they want a refund. None of us move. Two minutes later he comes back with the granddaddy manager special readmission passes, good any time for any movie.

Now I get to see 2 movies this week. And the wife did like Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind by the end. It’s all aces for me.