"If you ain't first - you're last."

Ah, faceless reader, we meet again. Enough of the pleasantries - a lots happened so sit a spell and let me bore you...

In case you had any doubts, Talladega Nights is awesome. I'm not quite sure if it's in the Anchorman echelon just yet, but it's still a very funny film and Will Ferrell's supporting cast almost surpasses him in terms of great moments on-screen. First off, Gary Cole as Ricky Bobby's father has probably the most quotable lines of anyone, and John C. Reilly should've been in Anchorman because he more than holds his own with everyone else. However, the best has to go to Sascha Baron Cohen as Ricky's French rival. The man is a chameleon and it took me several times to register that this man also portrays Ali G and his newest movie (based on arguably his best character) Borat had a trailer before the film futher hammering home this man's talent (see poster under Talladega Nights). While Cohen's Ali G: Da Movie left a truckload to be desired, I'm hoping his performance here will parlay a new audience to witness his great Borat character in its own film. Oh, and the NASCAR tint of the film didn't really bother me either way. See it and I promise you'll walk away laughing (and stay through the credits).

Thanks to my buddy, Mike, I also got to see Superman Returns in 3D at the IMAX. While not a big fan of the whole "3D" craze, I did enjoy seeing the movie again and the 3D stuff was fun at the beginning, but tended to get a bit comical as these little 3D glasses would flash on-screen everytime you were supposed to put them on and you could hear seats shifting and people murmuring everytime it happened. The story was great and seeing the homages to the first film was fun again. I'm not going to give any more of my thoughts on the film because you can find them in an earlier post if you really want to know.

Yet another film I saw was the critcally slammed Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest. People seem to generally hate this film and, while it did have its short-comings, I say this to you who were so bothered by it: IT'S THE SECOND MOVIE IN A TRILOGY - IT'S SUPPOSED TO BE A BIT DEPRESSING. I guess I'm the only one on the planet that remembers Attack of the Clones as being a bit worse than Revenge of the Sith, and The Two Towers ending with a ton of questions and a cliff-hanger ending. This movie was supposed to introduce all the major players, which it did, set-up the central conflict and side stories, which it did, and leave us with a cliff-hanger ending, which it did. The swordplay and action were fun and I really think the movie got a much harder time than it should've.

Stephanie had a birthday on Friday and we celebrated by venturing down to St. Louis for the weekend to take in the sights. We packed a lot into those two days, including the St. Louis Art Museum and St. Louis Zoo, the Gateway Arch, the City Museum, the Anheuser-Busch Brewery Tour, Union Station, and a tour of the new Busch Stadium - home to the St. Louis Cardinals. Unfortunately, the Cards were in Pittsburgh this weekend, but the upside was that we got access to everything on the tour since the team was away. I've included some cool photos below and have a Kodak Gallery set up so contact me if you want to view the rest.









And I'll leave you with this image from the aquarium, giving everyone a not so subtle hint at the next great film of our generation. Until then..