The defining Matt Damon role for me would be the first several minutes of Eurotrip.

I don't think he was even in the credits, but it's what made me a Damon fan.

There are many cool bits in the first movie's action scenes that you can refer to: magazine attack! Pen in the hand! Driving down stairs! Narrow alley employ! In the second there are no such distinguishable elements.

I mostly agree with you -- the first movie is much better and has many more Cool Bits -- but the awesome magazine fight (followed by exploding house!) is in the second movie.

but the awesome magazine fight (followed by exploding house!) is in the second movie.

Figures - 'cuz he already stabbed somebody with a pen in the first one.

In the third one, he'll dispatch somebody with a tape dispenser.

I'm going to go practice my tape fu right now.

So, Matt, guess what? According to J.J., the Ethan Haas sites aren't connected to Cloverfield. So we have no blinkin' clue what they are.

Slusho, however, is in-game. In the trailer, you can see a guy wearing a Slusho shirt, even.

He spent the entire film sniffing about how it wasn't filmed where the story was set (He identified every. single. plant. on sight...and loudly)

I thought the scenery in Mohicans was gorgeous, but it did bother me, because it's clearly NOT Connecticut, et cetera. I know how the woods are supposed to look around there, dammit.

I shoulda known. My aged, sciency friend just doesn't have the it's a movie...just enjoy it gene. The scenery was so gorgeous and there were at least SOME attempts at verisimilitude, but nope...not enough.

Then again, I see therapists on film and say 'oy jeez. they would NEVER do that', so I guess I understand that particular crank.

I thought the scenery in Mohicans was gorgeous, but it did bother me, because it's clearly NOT Connecticut, et cetera. I know how the woods are supposed to look around there, dammit.

I felt the same way watching the Sopranos episode where Tony takes Meadow on a tour of colleges in Maine. NOBODY ever seems to get Maine right, unless they actually film there (and even then it can be a crapshoot). Which is strange, because New Jersey isn't THAT much further North - you'd think the foliage at least would be somewhat similar.

It didn't help that they actually had scenes where they were supposedly at Bowdoin College. I grew up using Bowdoin College as a playground; that was no Bowdoin College.

Interesting. I woner how those sites first got linked to the trailer,then...

I'm hoping for it to be a Lovecraft-inspired story, while bracing myself for it turning out to be a live action Voltron. But the man-on-the-street-fleeing-from-something-huge-and-terrifying quality reminds me of what I liked about The Call of Cthulhu. Hopefully Rob & Co won't save the day by getting the monster to chase them all over Manhattan in a cab.

why send Russian McHottie to kill Bourne? Aside from just wanting to see him in linen?

That reason is good enough for me! Karl Urban was damn hawt in that linen suit.

Going to see movies with my mom can be interesting; as a nurse, she has a tendency to visually dissect on-screen killings and can tell you if the person should actually be dead from the positioning of the bullet/knife/whatever. She was pretty happy with the end of Deathtrap, when the knife ended up in someone's back (I remember so little of that film that I can't recall if it was Caine or Reeve who got stabbed) and she said then that the person couldn't be dead from where the knife was located. Sure enough, he popped up later! Mom was all "I told you so!"

Wow, James Berardinelli gave Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix 3 1/2 stars!

With its fifth cinematic outing, the Harry Potter film series has ascended to another level...

When it comes to generating unparalleled audience hatred, however, no one does it better than Imelda Staunton, and that's in part because the smile rarely drops. She could shoot a man dead at ten paces with that smile...

With The Order of the Phoenix, Harry Potter has truly come into his own, fulfilling the promise of The Prisoner of Azkaban and The Goblet of Fire. These are no longer cute stories of wizards and magic and things that go bump in the night. They are dark tales where the themes and creature become increasingly distorted as the frames whiz by. The Order of the Phoenix is the best on offer to-date from the Harry Potter cinematic franchise, and one of the few reasons during the summer of 2007 to venture out to a multiplex.