Monsters vs. Aliens

This is the new DreamWorks animated movie. Capone organized a screening last week.

I loved it. Reese Witherspoon does a wonderful job with the lead. Seth Rogen plays an idiotic gelatinous blob, and the more stupid his comments were, the harder I laughed.

Greg mentioned that he was glad to see an action movie with a girl as the main character. Nearly all the other characters are male, but for once the Smurfette problem didn't bother me.

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The Last King of Scotland

Can something that is horrifying also be entertaining? Would it be awful to admit that I enjoyed this fast-moving film about Idi Amin's horrific reign?

I liked the references to Scottish and English culture. I had to explain to Greg that "spit your dummy" is Scottish slang for "have a tantrum." In Scotland, a pacifier is called a dummy tit. For some reason, nobody there finds this giggle-worthy.

I've never thought of Forest Whitaker as a scary fellow, but in this film he's cast opposite actors who are rather short and slender, and he's filmed as if he towers over even the bodyguards.

The film does not mention that Amin once offered to marry Princess Anne. Some people offer this fact as proof of Amin's insanity.

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What would Watchmen be like as a Saturday-morning cartoon?
http://chicagoist.com/2009/03/08/weekend_diversion_watchmen_the_cart.php

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Watchmen

I really enjoyed this because it was so faithful to the book in so many ways. However, if I had never heard of the book, I probably would have hated the movie because of its vivid, unrelenting, lingering celebrations of appalling violence. Go figure.

This was one of the few films I have seen where I felt that full-frontal nudity really WAS essential to the role. Nice job, Billy Crudup.

Guess what my favorite part of the movie was? When the man admitted that he was wrong. Sure, he was blue and on Mars, but it was still a thrill.

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