I never thought Four Brothers was going to be a box office smash hit or anything, but I did expect a little more. I've mentioned before that I'm a fan of Mark Wahlberg , so this was a movie I've been meaning to see for a while. I do have to say that I was somewhat disappointed. I don't think it was a bad movie, but it didn't go the way I was expecting/hoping, I guess... not that I know what that was. Another complaint was that they seemed to make way too many assumptions. I'd like to think you're going to ask a guy a few questions before you decide to kill him. Maybe that's just me.

Overall, I'd recommend it if you can borrow it from a friend or it comes on TV, but I don't know how far I'd go out of my way to see it. Like I said, the movie isn't bad, but I wouldn't necessarily jump at the chance to see it again.

As expected, season 2 of Stargate SG-1 was a good one. I didn't really care too much for the finale, Out of Mind , but overall the season was good. The season 2 finale was the first of a 2 parter, like the first season finale , but it didn't have anywhere near the hype. The main reason I didn't like this finale was that it was a flashback episode. I don't like flashback episodes because they always give me the impression that the writers ran out of ideas and were simply going for filler. I admit there are a lot of creative minds behind Stargate SG-1, but flashback episodes are just poor taste, in my book. At least the flashbacks were tied into the storyline fairly well, despite the fact that it was quite predictable in a sense. I am looking forward to the next season , which is a nice constant with this series. It's been a while since I've had a series that I was excited about watching one episode after another. There were a few that I have been excited about finishing, like Sliders , Tru Calling , and Oz ; but Stargate SG-1 has been able to deliver on the promise in nearly every episode. Very well done!

I just saw Fearless this weekend and it was a great last for Jet Li. If you're not familiar with it, this is supposed to be Jet Li's "last martial arts epic." I talked about that more earlier this month. If you like typical martial arts movies, this is a must-see -- even if you were disappointed by the likes of Hero (Ying Xiong) and other epic films as of late. I did think the time jump was odd, but it worked out fine, I guess. I'm just not sure as to why that choice was made. The jump didn't seem to benefit the movie. Either way, check it out.

Well, I finally got the second season of Tru Calling about a month ago and have been waiting to sit down and finish the last 6 episodes. I finally did that today and I have to say that I am completely disappointed! Not that the episodes were bad. In fact, I liked them all. The thing I didn't like was the fact that there was no attempt to wrap up the story. In most series that I've watched, there is some sort of attempt at wrapping the story up. Not in this one. What seemed to have happened was that they went on a holiday break and hoped nobody would remember the show. Granted, there weren't any major events awaiting an immediate resolution, per se; but there were a lot of open issues and close calls that begged to be answered. Honestly, if this would've been a season finale with a definite follow-on season, I wouldn't have had a problem with it; but that wasn't the case.

All-in-all, the series was great. I just have to give a big thumbs-down to the station -- Fox, I believe -- and maybe even the writers for not giving the show the closure it deserved -- assuming they had the chance. This is one of those series that you'd like to see picked up in a movie -- almost like Firefly/Serenity. The concept behind Tru Calling may be played out, but at least there was a twist to this one. I will definitely miss it.

One thing I always do when I reach the end of a good series is look for the actors/actresses in other shows/movies. My favorite newcomer -- at least new to me, anyway -- was Shawn Reaves, who played Harrison. And, it looks like I was right... he is pretty new to the scene -- and from a great state, I might add (Louisiana). He was in a few movies, it looks like, so I'll have to check those out.

The first season of Stargate SG-1 was exactly what I expected. I definitely enjoyed it and can't wait to continue on with the next season; especially, with the cliff-hanger the writers left. I have a love-hate relationship with season finale cliffhangers, as I'm sure we all do. The good ones tend to leave you with expectations of good things to come, but it always sucks when you have to wait those 6-9 months for the next season to start. This is actually part of the reason I prefer shows that have already finished -- I don't have to wait for the season to start back up. Then again, it's not always that easy -- I'll touch on that in my next post.

Back to the point, Stargate SG-1 was great. I mentioned before that there were some similarities between this show and Sliders; well, there was another SG episode that brought up the concept of alternate universes, There But For the Grace of God, which is exactly on the Slider territory. Not that I'm complaining... just pointing it out. I love both shows, but SG obviously got more money. I'm sure that will follow thru brilliantly in the next season.

One thing I've been wondering about since I first saw the trailer for Fearless  was what "Jet Li's  last martial arts epic" really meant. Depending on how you look at it, "martial arts epic" could refer to the historical Chinese movies, typically based on a time frame from the 1600s thru the 1800s, or just plain old martial arts movies in general. Of course, I love Jet Li's movies, so this bothered me. Luckily, tho, after seeing an ad for Fearless -- which is coming out next week, I might add -- I did a little more looking into it and it seems as tho Jet Li's doing a movie with Jason Statham  (most recently in Crank ) called Rogue War . This will be a good one. The last time these two were together was for The One , which I also loved, but it didn't do as good as I had hoped -- I still recommend it, tho. Oh well. Hopefully this will do better. I believe it's done filming, so we should see it around early summer, maybe.

I finally got a hold of season 4 of Sliders a few weeks ago and finished it yesterday. It's been a while since I saw season 3, but the idea is pretty simple. Anyone who knows how Sliders started and the direction it started to take can understand that I didn't have too high of hopes for this season. I was pleasantly surprised, tho. Not that the season was up-to-par with the overall concept of the show, but I still enjoyed it. Season 3 only barely touched on the existence of the Kromaggs, but this season took it to a whole new level. Although I caught a glimpse of it years ago without realizing what episode it was, the season premiere set the stage for the entire season. It was evident that the show had taken a noticable turn, for better or worse. I believe I saw somewhere that this was pretty much when the original creater stepped aside and let others take the show in their own direction.

One thing I thought was funny as I switched between different shows I've been watching was the fact that I'm watching Sliders and Stargate SG-1 at the same time. If you know one, chances are you know the other, so I won't bore you with the details. Let me just say it's interesting seeing the two different takes on travel between worlds. It's kind of funny how two sci-fi shows root themselves so heavily in history. Stargate goes a lot farther back, of course, but they both try to play on the the history of Earth. One that I can actually make a side-by-side comparison to is the use of Thor in each series -- Sliders' Data World and Stargate SG-1's Thor's Hammer. As you might imagine from the "professionalism" of each show, Stargate SG-1's was a lot closer to what you might expect. Hell, the version in Sliders didn't even have a hammer! What's up with that!? To give Sliders a break, Thor was only a very, very minor part that lasted all of 5 minutes.

Despite all this, if you liked the first few seasons of Sliders, I'd suggest trying to finish off the series. This season was good. I admit it could've been better, but I had high hopes for Sliders when I first stumbled upon the pilot episode. I'll stick it out for the last season, which I'm working on getting, now. Hopefully, I'll have it within the week. I'm always anxious to finish off series.

When I saw that Jason Statham  was in another movie, Crank , I had to go see it. He's been in a lot of good movies and is a great action star. My favorite was probably Transporter, which is probably his biggest role, in my opinion, but he has a lot of other good ones, too. I do have to admit, that I went into this movie thinking it was going to be a horrible plot -- not that I'm saying it wasn't -- so, with that, always comes a little slack when it comes time to say what you really thought of it. Action movies are typically just that -- action. If you go looking for more, you'll most likely be disappointed. This was one of the odd-balls, tho. I really enjoyed this one. Going in with expectations of great action and nothing but, I was surprised to see how funny this movie actually was. Not that it set out to be a hillarious movie, but the comical nature of it just made it that much better. If you haven't, check it out.

Oh, one last thing: Don't bring the kids. Yeah, yeah; who would bring kids to this movie, right? Well, the people sitting in front of me, that's who. Mother, father, and two sons -- probably 9 and 13; but, that's a big guess -- I'm horrible with guessing ages. The younger son's eyes were covered before the movie even started because of the Grudge 2  trailer. Then, not even 20 mins into the movie, both sons' eyes were covered as naked women bounced around the screen for a second. All I could think was, "And, really... what did you expect this was going to be about?"