When will Schwarzenegger have total recall on his position on the policies he’s running for California governor as? I mean, if he is going to the job, doesn’t he have to tell the people what types of things he is going to do? What is his position on the issues that affect the state? If I was a California voter and thus my vote mattered, I’d not be stargazing at this guy who has had a string of movie flops for the last 10 years or so (he got paid 25 million for Collatoral Damage?!?!) and is running a political campaign without announcing where he stand on anything. Check this out:

A spokesman, Rob Stutzman, said Schwarzenegger would release policy plans, but did not say when. “There’s been no intention to avoid specifics, but in due time and in his time and in the manner that he wants to he will lay that vision out,” said Stutzman.

It admirable that Arnold admitted to smoking a joint during the filming of his break-in movie Pumping Iron. What was he supposed to say when caught though? “Ah did not in-hale that joint” C’mon Arnold, break out with your position on issues. I don’t have many political blogs in my daily views, so perhaps some folks reading this can show me the way. This is just another example of my disgust towards politics and the reason I don’t comment very often on political things. Virus and Arnold, yesterday’s headlines just sucked, I guess, back to the tech sector!

The game isn’t over with Spy Kids 3D: Game Over. It’s odd that a sequel would be better than its predecessor, but Spy Kids 3D is like Rocky 3. They are both better than the movies that preceeded them, and yet neither was better than the original.

Young Juni starts out and he is out of the agency, feeling bitter and powerless of the beaurocracy of the agency; odd emotions for a kid who has barely made it through puberty (or has he?). Meanwhile his sister has entered Game Over to try and thwart the Toymaker (Sylvester Stallone). Unfortunately for Juni’s sister, she is trapped in the game (Tron anybody?) and Juni needs to come back to the agency and go into the game to save his sister and stop Toymaker from coming out of the game. The first few minutes of the movie are 3D and then viewers are invited to take off the 3D glasses and put them back on when Juni enters the game which I found kind of a cool, interactive way to get viewers into the film.

<img src=”/images/reviewspykids3d.jpg” border=”0″ align=”right”>The 3D effects are of your usual 3D fare: things popping out at you, floating in mid air, etc. I like the power pill aspect of the game where Juni reaches out and grabs a bonus life seemingly from the corner of your eye. I won’t spoil any other effects, suffice to say, they didn’t waste the 3D capability. 

Stallone is great as the villain in this movie. He should go back to playing the bad guy like he did as Frankenstein in Death Race 2000; he’s good at being the nemesis.

Now for the not so good: this movie is a rehash of other movies, both a cliche of itself and Tron. It has a similar race scene as Tron, and sort of a plot which has “players” trying to get to the master brain (Toymaker), but if you’ve never seen Tron and you enjoy the premise of going inside the game literally, than you will enjoy this movie more. Spy Kids 3D ends on sort of a flat, cheesy note, but it is certainly family friendly and better than some other sequels out there right now (like T3 and Charlie’s Angels Full Throttle), so take the kids and get butter on the popcorn. Grade: B-

Yes, it’s true! Russ Caslis actually built a computer inside Star Wars Millennium Falcon. It looks pretty cool too! He has other mod projects too, mixing art and computer work. On a whim, I Googled the falcon to see what else I could turn up:

In the spring of ‘96 dschin built the Millennium Falcon out of legos. Speaking of legos, apparently this is a hobby for many Star Wars fans, so check out this list of Star Wars Lego creations.

A Millennium Falcon free screensaver and wallpaper

As Chewy would say: “Arrrrrwwwwwww!”, whatever that meant (R2-D2, for that matter too had his own lingo)

Related: Player reviews Star Wars Galaxies MMORPG

Just listened to an interview today from Sylvester Stallone on the Jim Rome Show and he had a number of interesting things to say:

- Rocky 6 is written and ready for production: it is about fighters having a “puncher’s chance”. He said one of the producers was having some hangups with it (he didn’t elaborate) but otherwise it is going forward. Fans of Rocky sequels will rejoice. Stallone admitted he was disappointed with Rocky 5 and how he made Rocky too mortal. I suspect this movie, if it ever comes out, to be a cross between Rocky 3 and 4 and to sell much like Rocky 5. Time to hang up the gloves on this franchise, Sly.

- His kids wanted him to do Spy Kids 3D and he is the bad guy in it. I am looking forward to this movie, actually, and we have plans to go see it. I like 3D movies and hope that this isn’t a dud and will help to spur on more 3D development. [update 7/4/04: reviewed Aug 3, 2003]

This second installment starts slowly and I guess my only huge problem with this revival of the classic TV series is that it is not very much like the series. Bernie Mac is great but Bernie Mac as Bos? And not just Bosley, but Bosley’s brother? They never explain how or why or if this should make sense, but hey, it actually works. Bernie Mac as Bos is a hundred times better than Bill Murray was in the first movie. And then there is all the action. I don’t remember Charlie’s Angels being an action flick, but more like a detective flick. So if you get these series conflicts out of your head, you can then sit back and enjoy this movie. I thought it was overall better than the first. Could have had a little more skin from the Angels. Grade: C+

Bruce (Jim Carrey) has some problems: he wants for the glorious news anchor position and instead is relegated to covering human interest stories. He also has a hot girlfriend (from Friends) who prays for him. Bruce gets beat up, blows up very humorously and then blames everything on God. He is then called up via a pager to Floor 7 and a white room to meet God who offers him the challenge: see if you can do it better than me. This movie is hilarious and one of Jim Carrey’s best to date. I laughed out loud several times in this flick and the woman sitting behind me really was choked up. If you like comedies then you will enjoy this film. Bruce Almighty sort of reminds me a bit of Liar, Liar in the sappy department, but hey I like a somewhat sappy film now and again (as long as it has humor or good drama to back it up) and I’m becoming more sentimental as I get older. Grade: A-

While on our vacation we saw two movies in the theater, the first of which was T3: Rise of the Machines starring the pretty much one-dimensional actor Arnold Schwarzenegger

No spoilers here in this review because, hey, this whole movie is a spoiler. It starts out of nowhere and slowly grinds to a very unceremonial entry by the man, er the machine, that has always promised he would be back. It is 10 years after T2 and somehow the future can’t be stopped, even though we were convinced in T2 that it could be. Once again a terminator — a newer, better looking one played by Kristanna Loken is sent back to come after an older John Connor played by Nick Stahl who is completely and thoroughly unconvincing in his role. I mean where are all the mannerisms and tie-ins to T2’s younger John Connor? Teenage Connor was rebellious and had sort of a punk edge where 10 year older John Connor borders on neurotic behavior over the weight of the world that the future can’t be changed. He is helpless. This dramatic a character change needs some sort of explanation other than the 5 minute one that Terminator 3 provides. Maybe they felt it was more important to keep this on the editing table and we’ll get the real version of the film — the director’s cut — on DVD in a half year or so.

T3 should have gone down with Cameron’s Titanic. I get this feeling that somewhere Cameron is very glad that he had nothing to do with this horrible sequel. It’s the worst movie I’ve seen this year, maybe in the last 2 years, and yes that includes Daredevil. You can see from the ticket stubs how much $$ I wasted on this. Is there anything redeeming about this sequel? Not really.

Don’t even get me started on all the reasons that this sequel is a complete failure for the franchise and for Arnold’s waning career. Most people will go see this one on the strength of T2 — just like we did, but this has all the looks of being turned into a sequel farce. And yes, the ending totally leaves the door more open for sequels, but I think I’m looking more forward to Jason vs. Freddy. Maybe those two horror freaks will hook up with a 90 year old Arnold and we’ll have a tag team match. Related reviews at Rotten Tomatoes. Grade: F