The Santa Clause 2 (2002)

 

Not nearly as entertaining as the first, but not all bad either. Most of the scenes in the North Pole are fairly weak. The entire clone Santa subplot was lame. However, the scenes in the real world were oftentimes funny and well written. Loved Molly Shannon's bit part. 

Rating: C-

Sausage Party (2016)

This makes South Park look like Sesame Street. Viewer discretion advised. Also, not as funny as I’d hoped.

Rating: C-

Harold & Kumar Go To White Castle (2004)

Like an Asian version of Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back. Really funny at times, ok at others. Plenty of cameos to keep you guessing.

Rating: C

Sidewalks of New York (2001)

A small Edward Burns picture about relationships, as usual. I enjoyed it - some fun characters and an outstanding performance by Stanly Tucci.

Rating: C+

The Mexican (2001)

Fun escape movie, although the arguing between Julia and Brad can get tiresome. More violent than I thought it would be.

Rating: C

Ray (2004)

I don't see how any other leading male performer can outdo what Jamie Foxx did in this role. He deserved to win the Oscar. That said, the film itself does not, nor does the director. It's a good movie and I enjoyed it, but I think it could have been much better.

The story focuses too much on Ray's drug addiction and whoring around. While this may be factual stuff, I think the audience would have gotten the picture with half as many scenes devoted to it. Instead, they could have spent more time on Ray's earlier years. I would have liked to see more about how he became such a fantastic piano player. All we got was a 2 minute sketch of him dinking around at the age of 5.

Terrific performance, pretty good movie.

Rating: C+

Serenity (2005)

The movie is great as a stand-alone feature, but if you've seen the series on TV or DVD, it's even better. All the TV characters are there, albeit taller on the big screen. As far as I can tell, the movie jumped around the TV series timeline, but also went far ahead to where the show was slowly taking us. It gave fans the closure that we so rarely get from our favorite TV shows that get prematurely canceled.

Rating: B-