Lisa and I finished off our marathon of movie going by going to the early viewing of Rebound starring Martin Lawrence as a prima donna college basketball coach. The basics of the story is that "Coach Roy" is a jerk who ends up getting kicked out of the NCAA (or NCBA as the movie calls it) due to his temper. In a move his agent frames as great PR Coach Roy goes back to the middle school where he learned the game to coach a group of misfit kids.

As is the case with every movie that is about a coach looking for redemption and a group of misfit kids playing the sport there is a standard recipie that is followed with Rebound.

1. 
   
2. Find Team of Misfits
   
3. Add Bitter Coach
   
4. Team helps Coach find Love of Game again
   
5. Coach transforms team into a winner
   
6. Team wins big game against rich "perfect" team that previously taunted misfits
   
7. Coach finds love with parent of one of his players
   
8. Everyone lives happilly ever after
   

Rebound is really no different than any other movie of it's type and as such it is a decent movie to take the kids too. It is good clean fun in a serial format parents will be all too familiar with but still has some good values in it. While not a classic like "The Bad News Bears" (nor will Rebound ever be remade) it's still an alright movie.

RATING4

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Last night Lisa and I broke from the plan of seeing movies we could see for free and paid to see Batman Begins at the nicer "stadium seating" theather in town. Batman Begins tells the story of Batman from his youth and into his early adulthood explaining how he became Batman and what his motivations for doing so are. This movie is substantially darker in nature than the older Batman movies and isn't silly at all (the way the TV series was). In fact, this movie does an excellent job of capturing the essence of the Dark Knight from the comics.

I had never seen the guy (Christian Bale) who plays Bruce Wayne (Batman) before but he did an excellent job of taking on the role of brooding billionaire turned vigalante. Lisa and I both enjoyed the movie. I think it is best if you just forget the earlier Batman movies, I'm sure the makers of this installment hope you do. It also appears that there will be a sequel based on the closing scenes of this movie. If that is the case then make sure you keep an eye out for characters you think will return in larger roles in the future (villans, allys, etc).

RATING7

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I'm almost hesitant to waste space on my blog to mention the movie Monster In Law So I won't waste much. It SUCKED. Do not go see it. Do not rent it. Do not watch it when it gets aired on broadcast TV. It was a total waste of our time.

RATING0

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Lisa and I went to see Wedding Crashers with three couples we are friends with and all eight of us had a blast. This movie is hilarious. The commericals I saw before seeing the movie didn't really give much away and definitely saved the best jokes for while your in the theater. I laughed, loudly, at quite a few scenes and even had to cover my face a couple times to avoid getting to crazy. This movie is a real winner.

Vince Vaughn has some of the best lines in this movie but even that isn't the best part. The situational comedy at times is priceless. I don't want to ruin any of the gags so I won't say anymore but - you really should see this movie. It was well worth the full price of admission. The other movies Lisa and I are seeing this week are free with our year-long pass however we had to go to a different theater group to see Wedding Crashers so we actually had to pay full price to get in. We didn't mind at the least once the movie was over.

RATING8

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During the past week (and in the days to come) Lisa and I have been going to a bunch of movies. The first in the series was Bewitched starring Nicole Kidman and Will Farrell. Overall the movie wasn't that great. However, it was still a nice diversion for a little while. In my opinion you really can't go to wrong watching Nicole Kidman for a couple hours anyway.

Lisa is more familiar with the old series than I am and she mentioned quite a few times that they did a really good job at casting the different members of the family and basically keeping them to their old form. One such example is Samantha's Aunt Clara who was a bit bumbling and still had a handbag full of doorknobs. I honestly don't remember her at all but Lisa recognized her instantly.

I thought the cast had a pretty good chemistry overall however the writing for the movie was kind of weak. Will Farrell really wasn't in his element playing a spoiled actor. On the flip side Kidman did a great job of playing the naive young witch who wants to give up her powers and find love (and just like in the series she manages to find love while never really dropping her powers).

Overall I'd say wait for "Bewitched" to come out as a rental or to be on HBO. It was OK but not really worth the price of admission.

RATING5

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At the Hospice fund raiser we attended a couple weeks ago Lisa and I bought a year long pass for two to the downtown theaters. The pass lets us go to as many movies as often as we want for a full year. We kicked off our year of movies friday night by going to see Mr. and Mrs. Smith starring Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie.

The basic premise of the movie is that the husband and wife pair are both assassins - a secret they have kept from each other for the duration of their relationship up until the time period of the movie. What ensues as they learn about each others secret life forms the story of the movie.

While the movie might be considered an action flick; it could also be viewed as a comedy and a romance. Overall it was a good movie for us to go to as a couple. We both laughed out loud at parts and were both left a little disappointed with the craziness of others. In general you have to be willing to suspend your sense of disbelief for the movie to be fully enjoyable. The story isn't that great but still the movie was fun to watch. If I gave ratings with 10 stars this would get something between 5 and 6.

RATING5

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