Galaxy Quest Gems

While doing a little movie research for another post I'm working on, I discovered something I thought was interesting and at least a little bit cool.

Do you remember the movie Galaxy Quest starring Tim Allen? It wasn't great but it had some pretty decent actors in it. My favorite actor in the movie was Rainn Wilson, most known as Dwight Schrute from the TV series The Office. He plays the role of Lahnk, one of the weird alien foursome. Another notable actor from that awkward foursome is Jed Rees. I know that name probably doesn't ring a bell; it didn't when I read it. But his face is one of those faces. I remembered it from somewhere, and after a couple minutes of thinking, I remembered. He is Glen from The Ringer starring Johnny Knoxville and Brian Cox. The Ringer was a movie worth seeing twice in your life, maybe. The only reason I remember it is because my cousin Jeremy is obsessed with it; and consequently, I've seen it over the twice-a-life limit.
Those were the first two actors I noticed, but then I saw more really good actors. A lot more. Here are the rest of the crop:

• Alan Rickman- Snape in the Harry Potter movie series, Love Actually, Sweeney Todd: Demon Barber on Fleet Street, and Dogma.

• Tony Shalhoub- Most popular recently for starring in the TV show "Monk." Also known for 1408, the voice of Luigi in Cars, Men in Black 1 and 2, and Spy Kids 1 and 2.

• Sam Rockwell- Assassination of Jesse James, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Matchstick Men, and he played the head thug in the 1990 original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

• Missi Pyle- To me, she seemed to be in every third movie I saw, but I don't think I'd ever heard her name before. She's in the Johnny Depp Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Dodgeball, Along Came Polly and Big Fish. But you'll probably notice her more on TV since she has made appearances on Mad About You, The Drew Carey Show, Friends, Ally McBeal, Fraiser, Two and a Half Men, Heroes, Boston Legal, The Sarah Silverman Program, and My Name is Earl. whew!
• Justin Long- This is the guy from those PC vs. Mac commercials, but he is in so many other things, too. He's one of my favorite actors. You might know him from movies such as Live Free Die Hard, Idiocracy, Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story, Accepted, The Break-Up, Herbie Fully Loaded, Dodgeball, Jeepers Creepers (and II), and Waiting.

• Corbin Bleu- The High School Musical sidekick. Besides being in the two HSM movies and the third one coming soon, Corbin can only claim a small role in Mystery Men.

• J. P. Manoux- I'd never heard of him either, until I saw what he'd been involved in, and then I recognized him. You might know him by his roles in Knocked Up as Dr. Angelo, the voice of Randall on Monsters, Inc., the voice of Scrappy Rex on Scooby-Doo, the voice of Kuzco on Emperor's New Groove, Meet the Fockers, The Day After Tomorrow, Eurotrip, and Malibu's Most Wanted. He is similar to Missi with his TV appearances, too. He's been in ER, Monk, Crossing Jordan, Scrubs, How I Met Your Mother, Smallville, Reno 911, Charmed, Sabrina, the Teenage Witch, Will and Grace, King of Queens, Angel, The Drew Carey Show, Just Shoot Me, 3rd Rock from the Sun, and Goosebumps.
  
• Matt Winston- I remember him from the annoying MC guy on Little Miss Sunshine, and the insurance agent guy from I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry. He was also in Zodiac, Kicking and Screaming, About Schmidt, Artificial Intelligence, and a small part in Fight Club. Matt is also a TV regular with appearances in JAG, That 70s Show, CSI, Monk, Scrubs, Reno 911, Medium, Bones, Friends and Grey's Anatomy.
  
• Isaac C. Singleton, Jr.- I only know him from two small roles: the US Marshall that tasers Adam Sandler on Anger Management and his role in Pirates of the Caribbean: curse of the Black Pearl.
  

This post started off as a little interesting discovery, but it turned into an effing web of film and TV relations. The point is: Galaxy Quest sucked, but had a lot of good actors that are making names for themselves currently.

Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street

I saw Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street last night, and I liked it. I'm not crazy about it and I probably won't ever see it again, but it was definitely worth seeing once.

I went into the theaters knowing only that it was a musical (not thrilled about btw), was the most gory movie Johnny Depp has done so far, that Tim Burton was directing it, and that Helena Bonham Carter was in it.

All good reasons to see it, but if you know me, then you probably know I have a bad habit of always pointing out what I don't like in movies. I liked this movie (not a lot, but enough). I thought only 40% of the songs were good. I thought it was too slow. I felt like they tried to create build-up toward the first victim, but it took forever. And, I didn't like the rushing through the alleys CGI scene. It made me dizzy and I never feel that way during a movie.

What was good was the acting. Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter, the two guys from Harry Potter (Snape and Wormtail), the two young boys and, of course, Borat were excellent. The visuals were great; the costumes were great. The story was brilliant! Two of the songs have been stuck in my head all day (in a good kind of way). The movie dripped of Tim Burton's style and that's always a good thing.

Overall, I liked the movie enough to recommend others to see it once. It's definitely a musical. Don't let the non-typical-musical cast fool you. It's also very gory, so keep the kids away. They'll look like Moses twenty years from now because they'll all have shaving complexes. Sweeney Todd will sit somewhere near the bottom of Tim Burton's all-time top 5 or 10 movies, but how can you not see a movie about a demonic, murdering, and singing barber played by Johnny Depp? Come on.