Five movies

....mostly from 2006.

Dreamgirls (2006)
I had my hopes up for "Dreamgirls", seeing as how I'm a sucker for movies based on musical careers. Alas, even though it started off pretty good, it totally failed to live up to my expectations. About 20 minutes in, the plot started to strongly resemble a black "Sound of Music", where everybody breaks out into impromptu musical numbers at the drop of a hat throughout. For magical reasons, whenever they rehearse songs with just a piano as backing, a full orchestra inevitably joins in by the first chorus, despite it being a mostly empty rehearsal room. Perhaps some of my dislike stems from the realization that R&B sounds exactly the same to me, so after over two and a half hours of allegedly different songs - which, had they not have been separated in time and by different costumes - would have appeared to play in a loop. I've heard that American Idol-finalist Jennifer Hudson have gotten rave reviews for her vocal performance in "Dreamgirls", based on her being able to scream louder than any of the other performers. Here's a tip; music is about two things - melody and dynamics. Singing at top volume all of the time whilst applying a vibrato almost a third across isn't indicative of skills at all. Try to hold a note every once and again, and don't equate volume to quality, ya epic Aretha-wannabe. On the plus side, Eddie Murphy does a great job, something I haven't seen since the late 80's. Curiously, the story describes something eerily similar to what happened to Beyonce Knowles as she manipulated away the rest of her band - All Saints or whatever. The rest of the girls in that band - managed by Beyonce's dad - were totally squeezed to the back of the line-up to make room for Queen B, and we all know what happened when the band split up. Beyonce - being the star, continued with the exact same music and made tons of money. Her former band mates, or whatever you'd like to call them, now work in the drive-through of some Chili's or Red, Hot&Blue in Georgia. Some people get the elevator, and some people get the shaft (not a Samuel El Jackson reference, by the way).

Blood Diamond (2006)
I'm starting to revise my opinion of DiCaprio, as he pulled off a good performance in this movie. Also, Djimon Hounsou did a fantasic performance as the poor fisherman who was robbed of his family in a militia raid. My only problem with the movie was that they stretched it out for too damn long, as they could've easily have cut out 40-45 minutes. The ending was really good, though, despite Arnold Vosloo's character dying.

Smokin' Aces (2007)
What the hell was this supposed to be? This was a bad ripoff of "Lucky Number Slevin" and "The Big Hit" - both infinitely better movies, I might add. First off, Ben Affleck is billed as one of the major casts in the movie, yet he dies after ten minutes, without any major scenes whatsoever. Andy Garcia, the other "big" name, has something like five minutes of facetime. They might as well have put DeNiros name on the marquee based on filming a random streetside encounter with him. Also, the "big finish" with Primo Sparazza and Freeman Heller being one and the same guy could be spotted by a blindfolded Ray Charles with the screen in another room. Seems like they just tried to slam everything in at once, like in the two previously mentioned movies - inbred redneck neo-nazis, big guns, militant cornrow barbies with a female Huggy Bear/Shaft-looking character, a scary mexican-like character, some slang-spewing stereotypes of various ethnicities and professions - it's been done. Nothing was original about this movie, and none of the performances were memorable. Next.

Apocalypto (2006)
Fascinating - both with respect to story, performances, set, costume, location - everything. Spectacular, and with the last 20 or so minutes being a jungle-set throwback to Home Alone. See it to find out what I'm rambling on about - it's well worth the time and dime.

Invincible (2006)
Disney-production of the true story of bartender and football (as opposed to soccer) fan Vince Papale trying out for the Pittsburgh Eagles and eventually making it - the quintessential underdog story. Mark Wahlberg pumped up from his usual ripped self to add some more water-weight in order to look like a 70's football player, and he succeeds. I'm a big fan of his anyways - after "The Big Hit" and "The Italian Job" and "Rock Star", he's proved himself in my book. And he doesn't disappoint in "Invincible" either - a really cool movie.