81. Fair Game

               Fair Game is the true story about Valerie Plame. Plame was the victim of a government conspiracy. When her husband writes an article calling out a few government inaccuracies, Plame’s identity as a covert CIA operative is leaked to the general public in retaliation. This effectively ends her career in the CIA and all forms of craziness break loose. The movie deals with the conspiracy and the aftermath of that revelation.

             What Fair Game also is, is a story about the War in Iraq and whether or not we have adequate information of Weapons of Mass Destruction or WMDs. Starring in this film is Naomi Watts (The Ring movies) as Plame and Sean Penn as her husband former Ambassador Joe Wilson. Wilson makes it his personal mission to clear not only Plame’s name but to bring down the people that did this as well.

                If you watch this movie as pure fiction and as a movie it is really good. The acting of the movie and the pace of the film are great. The movie is directed by Doug Liman who did the Bourne Movies. You can also look at this movie as a shot a Bush’s job as president and how he tried to justify a reason to go to war in Iraq. But either way the movie is good and I enjoyed it better than I thought.

Final Verdict: Not worth owning but worth watching!

23. The Ring Two

Poster says "Super Scary". No.

        This movie did not need to be made. Why do I own this? The first movie, The Ring, was so good. Such a great mind bender.  When did people get together and say “Let’s make another one” and actually agree this was a good idea. I am such a big fan of the first and the only times I have watched this dvd was when I had just watched the first one. But watching this on its own I really started to notice how weak this movie is. But can you really own the first one and not own the second one?

Not that there aren’t some scary moments.  I think that Naomi Watts tries her best here to make the movie work. The script and plot are very vague and stretch to try and capture the magic of the first one. I think, if a sequel was needed, they would have done better to totally break from the first movie, the first cast, the first family and to have it continue on the same path but in a different venue. For example having the video going viral or spread through email because even though this was made in 2005 who still used VHS even then?  Makes me really wish someone would make a third just to redeem the lameness of The Ring Two.  

 Final Verdict: Not worth owning but I might keep it simply because I own the first. 

Other Tidbits:

-Simon Baker, The Mentalist, plays a minor role in this movie. But even his brain power can’t save him.