Pride & Prejudice, House of the Dead, Spanglish, & AD cancellation

Pride & Prejudice was unbelievably good. Can't quite tell whether it's just that I love the story and even a changed and simplified version can make me giddy. It's a different version of it than the previous feature length Hollywood version. Which did a terrible job with it. Really, the entire movie was so amazingly put together that the changes (including the entirely unneeded Sixteen Candles ending) didn't actually hurt my impression. The directing, especially during the dance scenes, actually blew the BBC version out of the water. Matthew MacFadyen is no Colin Firth, but at least Jane Bennet was hot in this version. And Brenda Blethyn was very good. Donald Sutherland did a fairly good job, but that's mainly because his lines are almost the best in the book. I don't like the smaller parts that the non-essential characters were cut back to. I got the impression that things were simplified, and that bothered me. But the parts that were still there was more than enough to make up for those changes.

House of the Dead may actually be the worst video game movie ever made. Which is saying a hell of a lot. Plus, why exactly did the Asian girl have to wear a stars and stripes leotard? But really the big question is why everyone was deadly accurate with weapons and their fighting style? And the gratuitous nudity? Crap. Uwe Boll needs to be banned from being near a camera.

Spanglish was a little simple. Plus, I just didn't care for it. Eh. Good enough, but nothing remotely special. Sandler was good, but that's becoming normal in his non-crap films.

The cancellation of Arrested Development sucks ass. Hard. I would have been happier had they actually treated the show with the respect that a multiple Emmy winner should have commanded, but no, Fox has lost any chance I would have to watch another show. They haven't given a low-rated but amazing show any support in a long time. Possibly not since the X-Files. At least we got two and a half seasons of the funniest show on TV. Fauxin' Fox.