New movies you say?

Just so you don't get your hopes up, I'll list the flix first, so you can decide whether you really want to keep reading:

UHF
Dodgeball
Madagascar II
The Penguins of Madagascar

And last weekend we got

I am Legend
Minority Report and
Shenandoah

Did I say "new"? I meant new to me. I'll try to give each one at least three sentences:

UHF: I'd seen it on cable back when we had it. I didn't expect much from it; I figured it'd be dumb, but I laughed out loud quite a lot. Weird Al isn't much of a dramatic actor but he writes some funny stuff. The whole is better than the separate clips available on YouTube. I bought it because my daughter had been watching those.

It came double packed with

Dodgeball: I figured, "What the hell! People talked about it quite a bit, and it's cheap. Why not?" The old geezer coach (Rip Torn! Of all people!) cracked me up. And if that's not Ben Stiller's natural personality (God, I hope not!), he's one of the best actors of our generation.

The chick's hot, too.

You'll notice that I got Madagascar II and Penguins together as well (you can't be bourgeois if you're not cheap). I'm going to cheat and review them together as well. Hilarious, the lot of 'em. I don't know who Danny Jacobs is, other than the voice of King Julien, but there's another guy (along with Stiller) who's not afraid to make a complete jackass of himself for the sake of art.

The wife gave me I am Legend and Minority Report for Valentine's Day. [I love you too, Hunny Bunny!] Both of them deserve more than three sentences, but I'm lazy, so:

I am Legend: I suppose everybody knows by now that this is a repriese of the same story The Omega Man is based on. This one's a touch better, though I think Charlton Heston did a heckuva job on the older move. Will Smith is a mere five years younger than I am, (plus one month and eleven days, ignoring the two leap days)... He's 40, man! Close enough to my age, all right!?

Unfortunately, since the kids were watching it with me, I had to downplay the scary parts.

Minority Report: good action/adventure. Interesting special effects. Up there with Cruise's Mission Impossible.

Does that count as three sentences? Three fragments? It deserves better, but...well, you know.

Is it saving the best for last to put Shenandoah here? It's probably the deepest story, though there was a fair amount of schlock in it. Anderson is a very sympathetic character to me, but...didn't Sheridan burn that whole valley to the ground in 1864? They went a little easy on the Yanks, if you ask me.

But I enjoyed the speech.