Well, I’m back after my post-100 Days hiatus. It was nice to take that week off after 100 consecutive days of movies. I extended that break over the holiday weekend (aside from the Harry Potter review) and now it’s time to get all caught up. So here’s the first edition of what will be an occassional round-up of movies that I’ve watched.

Slumdog Millionaire – The Oscar-winning drama from Danny Boyle was one of the break-out indie hits of 2008. Starring Dev Patel as a lowly tea-server who goes on the Indian version of Who Wants to be a Millionaire (and wins big), the movie does a great job at weaving the answers from the game show and how Patel’s Jamal Malik gets them correct. And then there’s the undying love story featuring Freida Pinto. And frankly, once you’ve seen Freida, how could you not want to profess undying devotion and love for her? Of course, Boyle has since moved on to film yet another potential multiple Oscar-nominee with 127 Hours starring James Franco.

Dev Patel and the rest of the world falls in love with Freida Pinto.

Black Christmas – To be more specific, I watched both versions of this movie. For work, of course. First off, the original is OK. It’s really boring in the beginning, but at least it starts to pick things up toward the end of the movie. I wish I could say the same for the re-make. While watching Lacey Chabert lead a cast through a muddled storyline and terrible dialogue, especially that one drunk girl who keep cursing, this movie is terminally boring from beginning to end.

Not the way I want to see Lacey Chabert. Less of this and...

Seriously, within the frst twenty minutes, eight people get killed off! And they’re not even scary kills! What the eff?! I actually ended up turning this movie off as I saw no hope for it after about 45 minutes. Unless Chabert ends up topless or kick some ass, I’m not remotely interested in watching this franchise ever again.

... and more of this.

The Transporter/Transporter 3 – I watched both these movies back-to-back. I don’t know why. Probably because I hadn’t watched Transporter for a couple years. And naturally after watching the first Transporter, I have to skip the horrible sequel and jump to part three with that annoying Ukranian chick. Frankly, no one tops Shu Qi from the original Transporter. When she decides to “make things right” after Jason Statham’s Frank Martin saves her from a hail of gunfire and missles that level his gorgeous seaside villa, my heart jumped a bit. Now that may have been from years as a kid of eating McDonalds cheeseburgers and chicken nuggets or from seeing lovely Shu in all her “cinematic” glory. And by “cinematic” I mean “walking around soaking wet in her underwear.”

Sometimes it's good to be the Transporter.

Grandma’s Boy – I don’t mind crude comedies. Some of my favorites include Role Models, American Pie and it’s subsequent sequel (called “American Summer Story” in Japan) and the Naked Mile entry (mainly for Angel Lewis now Angelique Lewis) and Van Wilder (I haven’t eaten an ecalair since watching this movie). When I first watched Grandma’s Boy, I found it o be hilarious and it had Linda Cardellini to boot. A ftew years later, (that would be last Wednesday to be exact) I watched the movie again, hoping to re-live some of my favorite scenes. The only problem was, the second time around, the movie wasn’t as funny. And I barely recognized an obese Jonah Hill as he suckled his first breast for 15 hours straight. I took the DVD into a local video store and they gave me $3 for it, so I ended up making a penny on it. Haha.

Monkey! Still the best part of this movie.

Shanghai Noon – Talk about a movie I hadn’t seen in a LONG time, this is one of them. It had been so long that I had forgotten the plot or the fact that Lucy Liu is in this. So in a way, it was kind of like watching this movie all over again from scratch. Which made the jokes funnier and the usual Jackie Chan action sequences rather enjoyable.

Jackie: Hey! You're not Chris Tucker! Owen: Hey, you're not Ben Stiller!.. So this movie might actually be funny?

I kinda wish they would come out with a third enstallment of this franchise, though I’m not sure what you would entitle it. Shanghai Dawn? Shanghai Morning? Yea, doesn’t have the same ring to it.

This has nothing to do with the movie. I just enjoy the site of Jackie Chan in dreads. (And apparently so does Jet.)

Well, that’s it for this first installment. Check back again sometime next week (I’ll try to post these every Monday or Tuesday) for another installment of What I Watched.