Hundreds of millions of bored office workers sit in front of computers forwarding emails, blogging, IMing, and playing on social network sites. These distracted corporate employees have accidentally created the Bored at Work Network (BWN) — a huge people-powered network with greater even reach than traditional networks like CNN, ABC, or the BBC.

from ContagiousMedia.org

James pointed out that Whoopi Goldberg’s character in Jumpin’ Jack Flash might be the very first member of the Bored at Work Network.  Imagine in the old days of BWN, we got to do things like help secret agents escape Russia.  Now all we do is watch stupid videos on Youtube.  My favorite part of the movie is that the hunky British agent Jack is played by Jonathan Pryce.  I love to see him get to be the winner sometimes.

(Jumpin’ Jack Flash originally uploaded by Dippingmytoes)

Rotten tomatoes rating: 28%

At approximately 21:00 hours on Friday June 20th, I went to see The Happening before anyone could ruin it for me. At 05:00 hours on Saturday June 21st, the first day of summer, I awoke with one swollen eye. The next day, two swollen eyes. Yadda yadda yadda, I discovered I had poison ivy. The only place I had been where I could have gotten it was Central Park. I’m just sayin’ everyone who was making fun of the attack starting in Central Park better back off. It is a jungle of nature in there where even a city girl can get poison ivy… on her eyelids!

You know… plants have ways that they can attack.

(Image the happening originally uploaded by absolutwade)

Rotten tomatoes rating: 19%

Boy, Fracture has to be one of the worst movies I have ever seen. It is like the battle of who can maintain their accent for the least amount of time. Anthony Hopkins every once in a while has a super fake Irish accent and Ryan Gosling occasionally puts on a non-descript Southern accent. Do they write these movies first or just decide to make a movie around Anthony Hopkins? I feel like I have to spit just to get this bad taste from my mouth.

(image Fractured Concrete originally uploaded by Martin Isaac)

Rotten tomatoes rating: 71%

The best part about the new Indiana Jones movie, is that the first three movies are always playing on tv. At any given time I can say, “I want to watch Raiders of the Lost Ark” and it will be on tv just ending with Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom about to begin. Drat. On the plus side, that means Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade is just two hours away from starting. Sometimes when I want to get inspired during a long bike ride or run, I sing the Indiana Jones theme. Oh Indy.
(Image LEGO Indiana Jones (photo) originally uploaded by Dunechaser)

Rotten tomatoes rating: 87% (wow, really?)

After the Brooklyn Biathlon on Sunday, I came into the living room and a horrible sci fi movie was starting on tv.  A sheriff was in a row boat trying to pull someone out of a lake amid a lot of thrashing about.  The sheriff finally pulled the man into the boat only to find that he was missing half his torso and his legs.  Gross!  But something aout this horrible sci fi movie was different.  The sheriff was played by Brendan Gleeson who you may know from such movies as Braveheart and Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.  This movie, Lake Placid, was one of those rare mainstream sci fi creature movies with an all star cast including Bill Pullman, Bridget Fonda, Oliver Platt and Betty White.  These are a different breed of monster movie because they pay the stars too much to kill them off one by one (I guess the actors in Deep Blue Sea cost less) so they need to have more story.  It was a nice change of pace from last week’s Sabretooth.

(Image Lake Placid Scenery originally uploaded by PhotoDocGVSU)

Rotten tomatoes rating: 37%

I’ve watched Disturbia a few times in the last couple of weeks.  The first time I was alone and scared.  The second time I was bored.  The third time I watched, I just yelled out George Washington every time the creepy serial killer neighbor played by David Morse Morse showed up.  David Morse plays George Washington in the new HBO “John Adams” miniseries.  I know actors have to play a lot of roles, but shouldn’t the casting agent put more thought into previous roles?   This is George Washington for goodness sakes… and David Morse has played creepy bad guys in 9 out of 10 movies (with one role as Abraham Lincoln, hmmmm).

(Image Disturbia originally uploaded by Christian – MBO)

Rotten tomatoes rating: 68%

Viggo Mortensen is like a fortunately unfortunately story. A fortunately unfortunately story is a book where the plot is alternating positive and negative events. My sister wrote one in elementary school and it has really set my understanding of the genre. Anyway, Viggo is fortunately unfortunately. Unfortunately he was in G.I. Jane. Fortunately he was the hot guy in A Walk on the Moon. Fortunately he was Aragorn in the Lord of the Rings movies. Unfortunately he was in A History of Violence, but fortunately… he was in Eastern Promises. What a crazy f-ed up movie. Any actor or director that would go for a naked fight scene really has something crazy going on. His next movie is really going to be horrible because Eastern Promises was so good. Good thing he has five movies in the works.

(Image The barbershop from Eastern Promises originally uploaded by Catfunt

Rotten tomatoes rating: 89%

Maybe it is all the bad movies I have been watching lately or because James has been away too long, but I just watch The Interpreter and I didn’t even think it sucked.  Normally I hate Nicole Kidman (although she smiled at me at the gym once) and I usually refer to Sean Penn as a windy gas bag, but they were both fine.  I think it was the first Sean Penn movie where I haven’t thought about Spicoli.  Well, except for when I thought about how I hadn’t thought about him.  So, I guess I better give Sean Penn a second chance.  That’s a lot of movies to watch.

(image interpretor originally uploaded by max116)

Rotten tomatoes rating: 59%

When my sister really hates a movie, she calls me and tells me the ending so I won’t go see it. This is completely voluntary on my part. I’m not sure why we do this especially since we have different taste in movies. So anyway, Joanna told me the surprise ending of Fight Club and I vowed not to like it if I saw it. And I saw it and I didn’t like it… but then I watched it again. And of course I liked it, what is not to like about this movie?

I just noticed that Roger Ebert hated Brazil, Fight Club and Die Hard. He liked Star Wars The Phantom Menace and said, “There is a sense of discovery in scene after scene of The Phantom Menace.”  I wonder if Joanna and Ebert have the same taste in movies?

Image fight club prequel originally uploaded by Kevin Steele)

Rotten tomatoes rating: 80%

It is so nice when you go into a movie with no expectations and then love the movie. I went to see No Country for Old Men and spent the next two hours holding my breath. I was so scared of Javier Bardem’s character Anton Chigurh (pictured right). I had never seen a Javier Bardem movie before so I had to look him up just to see that he doesn’t always look that scary. James said afterwards that he had been worried that it would be just another Coen brothers movie with people talking in funny accents. Instead it was a different kind of Coen brothers movie with people talking in funny accents.  We are going to see it again when James is back from traveling.

Image no country for old men originally uploaded by machu picchu

Rotten tomatoes rating: 96% (hey, they got it right)