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Good movie. I don't know about best movies ever, though. I had it at #6 on my list from last year and I really thought it was Tim Burton's best work. Ebert actually gave that a thumbs down, the turd burgular!

Either could I ... but he did a decent job, and his charm won me over. He let the movie do the work whlie he went along for the ride.

Addicting, ain't it? What's up, youngin'?

I took it out, kiddo.

NO SPOILERS BELOW The Butterfly Effect A Pretentious Review So ... The Butterfly Effect (TBE). You can tell by the title it is going to be a premise movie, and while they distort most philosophical precepts of determinism, the resulted idea works well as a film. All you have to do is not screw it up in the casting, which brings us to the underlying question. It's not whether the film is good or not; rather, the question everybody wants answered: Was Ashton any good? Or, if your one of the more cynical sorts: How bad did Ashton screw it up? The mere fact that we're on first-name-only terms with Ashton Kutcher is rather amazing. He takes the Kramer role from a sitcom that gets roughly 1/5 of the viewers of Seinfeld and turns it into a springboard for leading roles in major theatrical releases. Yes, there was that little thing call Punk'd, but does anybody remember the (singular) movie in which Michael Richards played the lead? Well, people will remember TBE. They won't remember it like Gone With the Wind, Casablanca, or (gasp!) [ INSERT MOVIE HERE ], but they will remember going to the movie and liking it. Not only did Ashton not screw it up, he was charming, engaging, and credible. What is the movie about? Evan (Kutcher, with two younger actors playing young Evans) suffers from blackouts. In stressful situations he loses consciousness and, retaining no memory of the event, comes to once the tensions have been eased. When tragedy forces him to evaluate one of his childhood blackouts to try and piece together the causation leading to an eventual death, Evan finds that he has the ability to trascend time and relive those events he had previously blocked out. His desires to rewrite history to the benefit of his childhood friends Kayleigh (Amy Smart), Lenny (Elden Henson), and Tommy (William Lee Scott) end up testing the ramifications of his butterfly effects. No, really. What is the movie about? The movie uses the butterfly effect as a vehicle to explore parallel outcomes: universes, if you will. The only constant in these universes is Kutcher's character, which begs the question: If he is the constant and the universe is the variable, does the universe exist beyond his capabilities? Whatever. This movie could have been campy. The directors and writers could have used this device to create inane scenario after inane scenario where the disjunct from reality gives them artistic license to indulge their creative fantasies. Thankfully for us and the movie, they didn't do that; rather, they used the device to create an intricate chain of circumstance that allows us to form attachments to the characters, not the time travel. And while none of the characters are acted or directed in particularly noteworthy manner (both good and bad), the plot development has you legitimately caring what will happen to the foursome in the next parallel. Why you would like this movie: The concept is well done. When you try to break it down, that's the only thing that stands out. The acting, directing, and production elements are all modest, allowing for the story and the basic ideas behind the characters to carry you through. It's not high cinema, but it's not bad cinema, and it entertains. Why you wouldn't like this movie: Two types of movie goers that could possible not like this movie: If you ... a.) NEED high cinema, b.) will overanalyze the concept, or c.) are apt to walk out of movies asking questions like "But I don't get how ..." ... then you might have troubles. Overall If you like movies, go see this movie. Take a date. You'll talk about it for an hour afterwards. If you spend more than an hour on it, you're probably taking it a little too far, but this movie on my 1 to 9 gets a 6+: well above average and recommended to all. Feel free to give me feedback on what you've read above. I post because I want to talk about the movie as well as improve my writing skills. Feel free to send me a PM.

True dat. I need to remove it from my sig. It's not cool to paste PMs into the main board. The 'P' stands for no 'Pasting'.

Ginger! You weren't supposed to make it all big and all! Now I'm dead. Dead. Disco. Might as well start making out the will. I'm gonna have a Venezuelan assassin coming for my corpse.

Oh, that? That's a club I made up: The Breakdancing to Clocks Club. You want to join?

Correct me if I'm wrong, but the "White House" ad is one from the office of drug control policy and is just one of those stupid "dont' do drugs or you'll do something ridiculous, like rape your cat" ads. (Richard just made himself laugh) The drug ad is somewhat innocuous (though I'm offended by them), while the Bush ad is more confrontational. CBS probably should have the right to do what they want to do. In fact, it's probably good that this happened because now a CBS bias is clear. Besides, Moveon.org is getting more pub from having their ad rejected. In other policial news, Daivd Kay confirms Iraq does not and did not have WMD stockpiles. I honestly think you can make the case that George Bush should be tried in the Haig as a criminal. Too many innocent Americans, Britans, Poles, Iraqi, and others died because he failed to read intelligence correctly and then contructed lies around them. OK, I should shut up.

So I was right about you being traumaticized. :sneaky: You weren't right. My father was called Dick as I grew up. Being a dangerously independent child, I insisted that nobody call me that. And that attitude has carried over to this day, though nobody calls my father Dick anymore and I am extrememly proud to be named after him. What up, girl!??!

Su hija, o la esposa de Sean Penn en la pelicula?

Hey! Richard just saw this movie ... .. oh, Gawd. He's talking in the third person. AGAIN!

OK ... I'm going to go try and see it either tonight or tomorrow.

Excellent. Thanks, Eric. I've got this six string acoustic in my room for decoration (was a gift) ... ... gonna give it a crack. The tab does look easy enough to figure out. Thank you.

One of Chris's lyrics? Possibly cheezy? Ya' don't say? Aw, I still love 'em, though.

the pot will call the ket-tle black ...

*Richard puts newbie hat on* Hey ... what's a good site for Coldplay tabs? *Puts second newbie hat on* And where's a good site to learn how to read tab? *Runs into tree limb* Did anybody else see that coming?

anybody can add me ... see the footer buttons to this message. i use msn for work, so a response isn't 100% guaranteed (might be busy though not "status busy"), but i generally really like hearing from everybody from this board.

untiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiil twooooo plus twooooooo is fiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii-iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiive

"I missed the good part, and I realized ..." I hope I got that lyric right, if not, somebody should use that lyric in a song 'cause I like it :)

I'm gonna have to resort to wine here soon. I'm out of beer. I'm running out of soda. I'm running out of water. "But Richard," you might be wondering, "why don't you just go to the store?" Why? Because I'm not going to let him win.

Ooohh yeah, I liked the part of the movie where Sean is about to kill Tim Robbins... I was like don't do it, for the love of God! And Sean's wife... that lady was messed up. Oh totally! She was just there to reinforce all of the evil crap going on in his mind. Kind of like your sister does with me.

the :embarrased" was there because i was embarrased this thread was still going on. well i wasn't really embarrased, but you kind of embarrased me. Hey Gaby ... do you know what it's like to be caught off guard and embarrased? Has that happened to you recently?

Hi Ginger ... :embarrased:

I think it was meant to be weird. If you didn't think it was kind of surreal, then you probably didn't get the full effect.