New DVD reviews from That Guy Named David:

Closer (B+)

As most followers of this site know, I kinda have a thing for Natalie Portman (that is, of course, until recently when she shaved her head; still relatively cute, but I'm ironically not a big fan of bald women). Nonetheless, my infatuation began with her appearance in Beautiful Girls, easily one of the top 20 movies ever made (slight exaggeration, but still one hell of a movie). I also loved her more recent endeavors such as Garden State. In Closer, she plays a much more grown-up role as the focal point of this story of the dysfunctional lives of four sexually-charged twenty-somethings in Europe. The performances by her, Jude Law, Clive Owen, and Julia Roberts were all exceptional, and the story kept my attention throughout, despite some dragging in the middle. The dialogue was a bit racy, but I appreciate relationship movies that are genuine and don't pull many punches. The Movie Snob thought that the interactions between the characters were too over the top and not believable, given that they keep switching back and forth by sleeping with each other during the movie. I told him that he should have gone to law school at Tech. Anyway, good movie, but not one that your children should see until they are happily married.

National Treasure (C-)

Amanda (my girlfriend) refuses to watch movies starring Nicolas Cage. Obviously, she has not seen Valley Girl, when the young Nicolas Cage (then Coppola) made his debut in a starring role opposite the lovely Deborah Foreman. Anyway, back to this movie.... When I saw the preview in the theatre, I thought it looked relatively entertaining. Then, the movie came out and was slammed by the press. I tend to agree with my esteemed reviewing brethren on this one. Cage was great in Leaving Las Vegas and has been pretty damn horrendous in everything since (ex. The Rock, Con Air, Snake Eyes, Face Off, Gone in Sixty Seconds, on and on and on...). This movie is not much different. And to add to his ridiculous portrayal is the addition of the esteemed star of Anaconda, Jon Voight. Not to mention the fact that the story is so incredibly unbelievable (as in, there is no way you can fathom it to be remotely true, despite its attempt at portraying historical facts about this great country). In short, don't waste two hours of your day watching this movie. Really bad.