GHOST RIDER -- by naudy

Okay, first of all, I watched this movie with my 6 year old nephew, Matthew. He loves it. In fact, he loves it so much he had to tell me what was going to happen before it happened, do a quick demonstration of the coming action, point out said action when it occurred, and then follow up with a thorough instant reply of the action all while saying "Susan! Look! Look at me! Did you see? Susan!"

It's cute and I managed to become very very familiar with parts of the film this way. Which was just fine as GHOST RIDER is exactly the sort of film one can only watch parts of and really enjoy. It's a silly ridiculous exciting fun ride of a film. Nicholas Cage gets to do his sub-standard Elvis impersonation, Sam Elliot does the exact same charming thing he does in every movie he's in, and Eva Mendes more than adequately fufills her role of the bootylicious Latina. The nephew informed me the bad guy actor isn't actually Satan, even though he's scary and bad, and the other scary guys aren't real either -- just in case I got scared. Oh, there is some sort of plot thingy, too, but it didn't seem to matter much to Matthew or the filmmakers so I won't bother mentioning it.

I will mention this, though-- watch this movie with someone young, or young at heart, and you'll have a lot of fun. =)

MAHOGANY vs. DREAMGIRLS -- by naudy

Who do you think you're kidding??

Mahogany was made in 1975 and it features tripped out white folks, Diana's roller-rink-kabuki fashions, and a lot of the scrawny Miss Ross herself. The overall message of the film is, ostensibly, "Success doesn't mean anything w/out someone to love." The real message is "you may be talented and have big dreams but you should give up everything for your man, no matter how annoying he is." It's aggravating. I personally don't think it's a good idea to work your entire life to be a fashion designer and give it up right when you finally get what you've sacrificed everything for but, I'm not sleeping with Billy Dee Williams, am I?

DREAMGIRLS is kinda about Diana Ross and The Supremes. Diana says it's not true (as does her slavishly devoted biographer) and I actually kinda believe her. DREAMGIRLS is actually a life story of Miss Beyonce set forty years earlier.(The sudden personnel changes w/in Destiny's Child and Beyonce's solo work reflect the truth of this.) However, there is a little Diana Ross in the movie. The attitude of one of the characters in DREAMGIRLS, Curtis Taylor, Jr. (Jamie Foxx) exactly reflects the entire life philosophy of "Brian" (Billy Dee Williams) in MAHOGANY. One could attribute this to the times or you could just decide that many of the people in Diana Ross' life were manipulative control freaks. I know I did.

So, that sucks. As for the music in both films, it's really good. Eddy Murphy is pretty much the best thing ever invented, and while I REALLY don't think Jennifer Hudson deserved an Oscar, the girl's got some pipes.

David Attenborough (from 8 to 10 stars)

So recently I've been blessed to review lots of nature type videos with David Attenborough. I think they are all great. I know that he's done about half a million of them over the years but with improving camera technology and so forth some of these recent ones have been really cool. Some I have in mind include The Private Life of Plants, Life in the Undergrowth, and the Life of Mammals. As I said, the images are great. He looks at some pretty fascinating organisms and has gone out of the way to catch some in pretty rare and fascinating situations. Check them out.