Herbie's Legacy Lives On

Well it turns out that the family deal is actually Saturday night, but I ended up spending this past night helping my Aunt with some shopping and taking my little cousin to see Herbie: Fully Loaded. It was actually a much better movie than what I thought it would be, but it falls short of being worthwhile outside of a family situation. In other words, it's bearable to sit there with a kid but it's not like Shrek where you want to rush out there and see it otherwise. If you're a fan of the series then you may get a kick out of the subtle nods to the previous movies, but nothing else special here. The acting was about average, but some of them were just talking pieces of cardboard almost. Herbie was probably the best actor! You see a lot of T&A from Lindsay Lohan if you're like me and you find her attractive but have no idea why. The storyline leaves much to be desired and the characters are as hollow as can be expected. A lot of the humor does come from Herbie though and the racing scenes aren't too bad. It's a guilty pleasure of mine to see a happy ending like in this movie and I haven't seen a kid's movie in a while so it just wasn't nearly as corny as I thought it would be. I give it a C+ for not falling flat on its face and delivering something halfway fun for children (and horny, teenage boys).

I'm starting to get kind of tired so I'm not going to dwell too long on the techie news. Microsoft reached a settlement with IBM on discriminatory pricing strategies at a cool $775 million. It sounds like a lot but apparently IBM isn't even pushing it for server damages, whatever that means, but I'm sure that M$ doesn't see this as too huge a dent into its infinite money supply. Another lawsuit recently ended was the one with Grokster, and the Economist put up an enlightening article about both sides of the issue and how the Court tried to find a middle ground. It's a very touchy subject indeed and hard to choose sides. Broadband users may soon face a new tax that will go towards subsidizing internet access to low-income families. I'm a pretty liberal person, but I don't know if I believe that $10 a month for dial-up is so expensive especially given that the local government provide public libraries. Sales of web servers seem to be quite high according to a recent survey and suggests exponential growth in domains. Lastly, investigators seem to be getting worn down by identity theft with 50 million cases this year already and no national law requiring companies to inform you that your information is compromised. A scary thought isn't it?

There's about an equal amount of movie news today. For all you X3 onlookers there's word from Avi Arad that Maggie Grace left due to scheduling conflicts (with Lost), Nightcrawler will not be in it, Gambit is still uncast, Colossus will return, and a mutant prostitute will be introduced. Apparently, the character, Stacy X, was pretty minor in the series and a strange addition. The publicity machine for Fantastic Four just never quits with behind-the-scenes stuff over at Yahoo! Movies and at FilmForce if you're not quite inundated with the film. Moviefone got an exclusive clip from MirrorMask that's supposed to be creepy but it didn't bother me at all. Just a very odd scene where the main character gets a makeover by a bunch of robots. AICN has another review of Wedding Crashers suggesting that it's actually a relatively funny film, but I can't shake this skepticism I have about it. Maybe I just need to see more footage from it. Lastly, there are a few new posters floating around the net including this one that caught my eye:



Now for the Friday Fiver:

1. Who do you owe?
My parents for my education! College is a huge expense!

2. Does anyone owe you?
Not that I know of.

3. How many credit cards to you have?
Just one for now, CitiBank.

4. Do you care about national debt?
Yes, it's a huge problem but unfortunately I don't have the time right now to discuss it.

5. Would your friends be surprised if they accidently saw the balance in your checkbook?
Doubt it. I have no job right now so it's just my savings.