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How To Lose Friends & Alienate People, a review by Tom

Title: How To Lose Friends & Alienate People
Year: 2008
Director: Robert Weide
Rating: 15
Length: 110 Min.
Video: Widescreen 1.85
Audio: English: Dolby Digital TrueHD, Commentary: Dolby Digital Surround, Audio Descriptive: Dolby Digital Surround
Subtitles: English

Stars:
Simon Pegg
Kirsten Dunst
Jeff Bridges
Megan Fox
Gillian Anderson

Plot:
Simon Pegg (Hot Fuzz, Shaun of the Dead) stars as Sidney Young, a gate-crashing British journalist who loves exposing the shallowness of the celebrity world, yet desperately wants to join it. His dreams may come true when he accepts an offer from renowned editor Clayton Harding (Jeff Bridges) to write for ultra-chic Sharps magazine in New York City. Under the glaring eye of his distrustful supervisor (Danny Huston), Sidney finally gets to rub elbows with A-list celebrities... but always manages to rub them the wrong way. In this hilarious romantic comedy based on Toby Young's best-selling memoir, Sidney's talent for alienating people seems destines to torpedo his career. His fellow writer Alison Olsen (Kirsten Dunst) is powerless to save Sidney from further embarrassment when he sets his lustful sights on beautiful starlet Sophie Maes (Megan Fox). But when Sophie's all-powerful publicist (Gillian Anderson) makes him a very tempting offer, Sidney is finally poised to take the Big Apple by storm... or suffer the biggest humiliation of his life.

Extras:
Commentary
Deleted Scenes
Featurettes
Outtakes
Scene Access

Even though it has a surprisingly big name cast, this movie does not manage to be above average. Although it has some fun scenes in it. This movie is somewhat entertaining thanks to Simon Pegg. And Kirsten Dunst was also okay in this one. I liked her in this movie better than in her other recent movies.
You also can see actors playing Roy and Jen in "IT Crowd" in bit roles.

Rating:

(From DCO third annual November Alphabet Marathon - discussion/review/banter thread on November 3rd, 2009)

The Truman Show, a review by addicted2dvd

Title: The Truman Show
Year: 1998
Director: Peter Weir
Rating: PG
Length: 103 Min.
Video: Widescreen 1.66:1
Audio: English: Dolby Digital: Dolby Surround, English: Dolby Digital: 5.1, French: Dolby Digital: Dolby Surround
Subtitles: English

Stars:
Truman's WorldJim Carrey
Laura Linney
Noah Emmerich
Natascha McElhone
Holland Taylor

Plot:Extras:
Scene Access
Feature Trailers
Closed Captioned

My Thoughts:
After the last movie I felt like watching another Jim Carrey movie. This is another one I haven't watched in years. Matter of fact the last time I watched it was when I first got the DVD not long after it's release. Not sure why it took me so long to watch it again... it is a good movie. There really isn't any laugh out loud moments... but I did find it very entertaining all the same. It is an interesting and fun story. This one isn't the zany style of Jim Carrey. This role is more of an everyday type person in an extremely unusual situation. I do wish they stuck with the ending a little longer. I would have liked to seen Truman making his way out more then it showed. But over-all very enjoyable. Glad I finally watched it again.



(From Weekend Movie Marathon: Anything Goes on July 23rd, 2010)

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine - Marathon, a review by DJ Doena

Synopsis: Deep Space Nine is a former cardassian space station orbiting the formerly occupied planet Bajor. The Bajorans have lived for 60 years under cardassian rule but now they are free. The provisional government has asked the Federation for support and Starfleet takes over the management of DS9. It's commander is Benjamin Sisko, who has lost his wife three years ago in the battle against the Borg and now he must raise his son alone in the middle of nowhere. His second in command is Major Kira, a former bajoran resistance fighter. The rest of the crew are both Starfleet officers of all kind of races and Bajorans. Chief of security is Odo, a shape-shifter with unknown origins.
The spiritual leader of the Bajorans asks Cmdr. Sisko to study the "Tears of the Prophets", mythical orbs that have come to Bajor of the last ten thousand years. With their help Cmdr. Sisko discovers the only known stable wormhole in our galaxy and it leads to the Gamma Quadrant, to a point 70,000 light years away from DS9, on the other side of the galaxy. And suddenly the bajoran system has been put onto the map and the Cardassians will accept any excuse to re-take it.

My Opinion: It's very clear from the beginning that DS9 will be different than its predecessor Star Trek: The Next Generation (TNG). TNG played on a all-Federation-personnel Starfleet spaceship, while on DS9 uncounted cultures clash: Starfleet personnel, Bajorans and the civilians aboard the station - for example Quark, the Ferengi bar owner. And most of the characters have a background story and their lives haven't been straight-forward. I really like that. Unfortunately I can't really remember what I thought about them, when I saw them for the first time back in the mid-90s, but DS9 is now my favourite Star Trek show and one of my favourite Sci-Fi shows.
I also liked the idea of the "handshake" when the Enterprise made an appearance in the pilot episode, something they will do again when the Voyager departs from DS9 in their pilot episode. But the meeting between Captain Picard and Cmdr. Sisko also showed that these shows will be different.

Synopsis: A bajoran scout ship is being attacked by a cardassian warship but the pilot can be beamed out shortly before his ship is destroyed. He seeks asylum aboard DS9 because he was a member of the Khon-Ma, a "terrorist cell" during the occupation. Kira knows him from these days and she pleads to Sisko to grant asylum. But not all Cardassians have left the station. The local tailor Garak - who is suspected to be a spy - contacts Dr. Bashir in a rather unorthodox way and informs him about a meeting between two klingon renegades and the former terrorist.

My Opinion: The first episodes of the season will be used to introduce the viewers to the characters. While the pilot was mostly about Sisko and the loss of his wife at Wolf 359, this episode is about Kira and her past in the resistance. It was an OK episode, but I really liked the introduction of Garak, who will become an interesting guest character over the years.

Synopsis: Odo tries to throw a Bajoran out of Quark's casino/bar and wants him off the station. A few hours later that man is dead and there are no traces that could explain how the murder had left the crime scene. As chief of security Odo investigates but soon becomes a prime suspects and thus having a conflict of interest. Meanwhile Chief O'Brien's wife Keiko - who was a botanist aboard the Enterprise - has nothing to do on DS9 and becomes frustrated. When Sisko's son Jake befriends Quark's nephew Nog and subsequently gets into trouble, she decides that the station needs a school.

My Opinion: This episode introduces Odo who has also been security chief during the last years of the occupation. I really like that he's a man of principles who has his own codex and who values justice above all else. It was only consequent that it was he who pointed out that only a shape-shifter could have left the crime scene without leaving a trace. The story's hole was that the doctor couldn't figure out what these DNA particles were until it grown into a whole body. After all he was second-best in his year at medical school...

(From Star Trek: Deep Space Nine - Marathon on September 20th, 2008)