Do You Mean Anakin Was Darth Vader?!?!?!

What is up, everyone out there in Internet-land??? Wow, this week is going to be great! Why you may ask? It is my last week of work before I head up to my favorite place on Earth for a little vacation time, Toronto. So, if either of my readers have any recommendations of cool stuff to do in the T.O., feel free to send them to me in care of AOwL.com. But alas my loyal readers, me being out of town means that there will be no updates next week. I know that your lives revolve around my weekly commentaries (yeah, weekly... that "was" the plan), but I'm sure there'll be much to discuss in my next posting.

Movie Review
Star Wars Episode III - Revenge of the Sith (Four Owls out of Five)

So, I don't know if any of you guys might have heard, but the newest Star Wars came on last Thursday. Why does Lucas just toss these movies out with no warning or commercial tie-ins? Well, I wasn't diehard enough to go see it on Thursday or Friday, so I took in the 5pm showing on Saturday afternoon with my brother in beautiful Orlando, Florida. First off, it didn't appear that the PG-13 rating of the film turned off any families, as I would say that the vast majority of people there were with "younglings". Really, there's only one scene in the film that I think pushed this movie into PG-13, and it lasts but a minute or so.

The movie is great! Lets just say that Episodes I & II were practice for some of the things that he did in Episode III. While the movie still has the cartoonish feel with the massive amount of CGI effects, it has definitely gotten better since Episode I was released in 1999. The first shot in the movie is very reminiscent of the opening shot of the original Star Wars with the Star Destroyer chasing after Princess Leia's ship.

While I loved the movie, as a Star Wars faithful, there were just too many glaring discrepancies and some absolutely horrible dialogue that kept me from giving it the full five (or even 4 1/2). Lets just say that some of the "romantic poetry" I could have spit out in my ninth grade composition class and probably wouldn't have gotten that great of a grade on it. Really, Natalie Portman's best scene in the film is during her funeral (yes, Padme dies... Anakin also becomes Darth Vader and is Luke's father!) where she's just laying there looking totally hot. While the movie attempts to tie the knot between the original series and this series of prequels, it's almost like you need to disregard everything you knew from the first three movies to not question constantly what's going on in this film. I'm definitely going to be seeing it again in its theatrical run, and will have to follow my own advice next time. The die-hard Star Wars fans will know what I'm talking about, even the casual fans may pick up on some of it. But, maybe I'm just overly picky.

So, since it made nearly $160 million in its first weekend, I'm guessing most of you probably have already checked it out. If not, it's probably something that even the non-fan would enjoy and a film that definitely should be appreciated on the big screen. Definitely hit it up sometime when you have nothing better to do!

Woman I'd Stalk If I Weren't So Lazy - Sumi Das

Ah, she was going to be my lady last week, but she got usurped by the gorgeous Katleen. But something needs to be said on how gorgeous Sumi Das is. If there's big news coming out of Washington, D.C. each weekday morning, I get to wake up to Sumi reporting it while watching Good Day Tampa Bay on WTVT. Back in the day, she also had a cool show on TechTV before its merger with G4. Any woman from that channel has definite hotness cred (ahh... Morgan)! So Sumi, I shall be in New York for a few days over the weekend, so feel free to come up and try to stalk me, because I just won't have the energy when I come back from vacation to stalk you. Well, not like I ever would feel like it!

Random Thoughts

• I don't know if it was intentional, but there was a great moment on G4's website last week. On Tuesday, they had devoted the entire site to the release of Star Wars. There was a link on their main page for an article with a headline stating something like "A True Star Wars Fan States Why He Loved Phantom Menace". For those out of the know of all things Star Wars, Phantom Menace was the first of the prequel trilogy, and was absolutely abysmal. So, I was curious to see what redeeming qualities it had which I may have missed. So, I clicked on the story and it took me to a "Page Not Found" screen. Either a great practical joke or ironic mistake.
• Sitting through the trailers prior to Episode III, I don't know, but did Lucas make sure that all of them sucked? Maybe it's a bad sign for what's left of the summer movie season when none of the trailers prior to the biggest film of the movie looked halfway decent. Just pointing it out.
• Got to attend the final Orlando Predators home game of the season. Had a great time, got to meet the cheerleaders (Puurrr!!!) after the game, and got to hang out on the field. So, good luck to the Preds who head up to New York this weekend for the first game in the Arena League playoffs agains the Dragons.