Hoodwinked ***

Hoodwinked
Directed by Cory Edwards, Todd Edwards, and Tony Leech. Starring Glenn Close, Anne Hathaway, James Belushi, and Patrick Warburton. Rated PG.

Wow, 2005 was a bad year for animation! Wallace & Gromit notwithstanding, most of the animated films this year were mediocre, like Chicken Little, or just plain bad, like Madagascar. However, the genre gets its redemption at the tail-end of the year with Hoodwinked, a send-up of the classic Little Red Riding Hood story chronicling the massive interrogation that took place afterwards. Throughout the questioning of Granny, Red, The Woodsman, and The Wolf, it is discovered that the whole ordeal may be linked to the mysterious Goody Bandit, who has been stealing recipes all over the woods. I don't think I've had this much fun at a film of this kind since Shrek 2. Though the animation styles used here are painfully obsolete, it doesn't hinder the story one bit. With a clever, funny script and an excellent concept, Hoodwinked is the movie I've waited nearly two years to see! Don't hesitate to take the kids to this one, either, as you'll probably enjoy it just as much as they do!

NBC's Thursday Night Line-Up

Just recently, NBC decided to renovate their once-famous Thursday night line-up, and I have to say, they've done an excellent job.

One new show, Four Kings, concerns four young men (Seth Green, Josh Cooke, Todd Grinnell, Shane McRae) who move into an apartment one inherited from his recently-deceased grandmother. This is a great sitcom. I would even call it the new Friends. It airs at 8:30 p.m.

Another great sitcom this season is My Name is Earl, about an ex-crook (Jason Lee) who is trying to make up for all the bad things he's done with the help of his dimwitted brother (Ethan Suplee). I'm a huge fan of Jason Lee, and this series really shows what the man can do. Here's hoping they can get Kevin Smith for a guest-starring spot sometime. It airs at 9:00 p.m.


Rounding out the line-up is another great sitcom called The Office, based on the British television series. The many zany characters include the boss, Michael Scott (Steve Carell), butt-kissing Dwight (Rainn Wilson), bored Jim (John Krasinski), receptionist Pam (Jenna Fischer), and indifferent Ryan (B.J. Novak). Steve Carell won me over with his performances in Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy and The 40 Year Old Virgin, and this series makes me like the guy even more. A real winner, this one. It airs at 9:30 p.m.

I commend NBC for choosing these three great shows to air on their biggest night of the week. I hope they all have a long life on TV.

Glory Road ***

Glory Road
Directed by James Gartner. Starring Josh Lucas, Evan Jones, and Jon Voight. Rated PG.

Sports movies are a fickle variety. Sometimes you can get a real winner like Million Dollar Baby, or a big fat bomb like The Longest Yard. James Gartner's new film, Glory Road, managed to fall in between those two extremes and turned out to be a pretty good movie. For those of you not in the know, the film is based on the true story of Coach Don Haskins (Josh Lucas), who led an all-black starting lineup in the 1966 NCAA Men's Division Basketball Championship, a first in NCAA history. Though the movie is good, there are times when the story is just all over the place, always cutting away to one of the various subplots instead of focusing on the main storyline. Lucky for us, it doesn't hurt the film too much. There's a sea of mediocre movies out right now, but I say you should skip all of them and check out Glory Road. You could do a lot worse.

Read My Screenplay

I've been talking about An Evening with Bryan with a whole lot of people, but I've yet to let anybody read the screenplay for it (much to their disappointment). Well, I suppose the wait is over, as I've just recently put my original screenplay on the Internet. Check it out here!

An Evening with Bryan

For the past couple of weeks, I've been working on my very first short film, An Evening with Bryan. At this point, most of the film has been shot, but I've still got a bit more to do. I'm also editing what footage I have whenever I get the chance. It's being shot on a Canon Elura 85 MiniDV camcorder, and it's being edited on Adobe Premiere Elements 2.0 software. I play the title character, Bryan, in the film. I may put up a link to the script in a little while, so be sure to look for that!

My Ratings System

Considering the fact that I'll be doing movie reviews on my blog, I'll need some sort of ratings system, won't I? All the movies reviewed here will be rated on a scale of four stars.

* -- Bigger turkey than I ate at Thanksgiving.
*½ -- Very, very bad with one or two saving graces.
** -- Below average; not recommended.
**½ -- Average.
*** -- Above average; recommended.
***½ -- Excellent.
**** -- The best of the best; highly recommended.

Entering Into Paradise

My name is Will Penley.

2005 was a crazy year in more ways than one. Throughout the course of the year, I started, ran, and then shut down a website, set my own personal record for moviegoing, and began work on a screenplay that will become my first feature film.

It seems I'm always starting some kind of new project, whether it be a new screenplay, a website, or a blog of some kind. I can never settle on just one thing. And now that's all going to change. I've now made the decision to focus all my creative energy onto my new blog, Reel Paradise, and my screenplay, The Exit Doors (more on that later). So in 2006 there will be no more crazy jumping around projects for me!

But why Reel Paradise? Well, all my life, I've loved the movies. Movies have always fascinated me, taking me to places I'd never been before, whether it be outer space, the sea, Hollywood, Jupiter and Beyond the Infinite, and so on. Therefore, the main focus of this blog will be movies.

Over the course of this blog, you can expect to find information on my various filmmaking endeavors and my own thoughts and ruminations on film in general. Additionally, you can look forward to reading my reviews of the various movies I see, all of which shall be from the average moviegoer's point of view instead of in the overly-long and complicated Ebert-style that so many critics use.

Though that's not to say I don't respect Roger Ebert.

Well, I believe that just about covers the introduction. Thanks for reading my blog and I hope you'll return to catch future entries! Stay tuned.