In the recently watched category:
- Cloverfield
- Entertaining, I would even go so far as to say it lived up my expectations. It should have ended with a nuclear blast! And characters that seemed like they actually lived in Manhattan... real New Yorkers.
- Flight of the Living Dead
- For some reason, I thought this was another George Romero movie, like Land of the Dead, which is my favorite. It definitely isn't; it's pretty bad.
- TED: The Future We Will Create
- This is an interesting look at the TED (Technology, Education, Design) conference from 2006. There's a number of cool, futuristic concepts presented along with present-day work by big thinkers to make the world a better place. Maybe next year, someone will make a documentary about the grassroots BIL conference!
- Jumper
- Usually (read 99.999% of the time), when Hollywood takes a concept from science fiction, they make it a totally ridiculous movie. Even more frequently when it is geared toward a younger audience. So it was surprising to see this exception to the rule!
- Michael Clayton
- Confusing movie. Only by the time you are well into do you understand who Michael Clayton is, who he is working for, what the case is about, etc, etc. I guess I'm not a fan of movies that keep you in the dark, struggling to puzzle out characters and their motives. It didn't seem to be Oscar caliber material.
- This Is England
- Amazing independent movie from the UK. Set in 1983, the story of a kid drawn slowly into the circle of skinheads, straining his other burgeoning friendships. Ultimately examines the intersection of bigotry, nationalism, and hate crime. But otherwise, it does a convincing job of presenting England as it was a quarter century ago, and the early scenes of kids playing among the detritus of a collapsed economy made me slightly nostalgic for that bygone era. Five out of five stars.
- Juno
- I found the character played by Jason Bateman and Jennifer Garner to be more interesting than the teens, possible because the character of Juno was completely off the wall, and the role played by the kid from Superbad isn't given much room for character development. So the older couple are 30-something yuppies who superficially appear to have it made, but are ultimately revealed to be victims of their own conformity.
