My friend got a screener for Charlie Wilson’s War recently, and I watched it last night. I was expecting a great movie, and I got it. It’s hard to believe America came so close to abdicating Afghanistan to the Soviets; here I thought our modern political class was uniquely feckless and dysfunctional.

UPDATE: I had to add some of my favorite quotes from the movie. I don’t think any of them are spoilers:

My..erm..friend just got a workprint of Shoot Em Up, the Clive Owen action movie about..well..shooting. Having watched it, my first reaction is “damn, if I’d paid for that I’d be really pissed off right now!”

A while back, my pirate friend brought over a rip of Highlander: The Source, the latest movie in the Highlander franchise. I enjoyed the series as a teen, and the last movie, Highlander: End Game, was pretty good. Sure, this one got bad reviews on IMDB, including the dubious claim that it was the “worst movie ever”, but I figured the reviewer just didn’t get the Highlander Zen.

So I watched Casino Royale last night. Granted I did have a couple of drinks throughout the movie, but it came across as a very stylized, straining attempt at a Bond movie.

I’m not really a fan of the genre, so my objections are not based on purist grounds, I simply didn’t get the point of the movie. If I wanted to combine violence with World Series of Poker, I’d watch this movie; otherwise I don’t see alot of value.

Of course, the Bond girl was hot, and a more compelling character than usual, but that’s not enough to carry an entire movie.

I watch a fair number of movies, but I never get around to writing reviews. I’m stuck on a tech problem right now, so I may as well kill some time and write up some braindumps.

Children of Men

There’s just something about dystopian visions of a near-future Britain populated by doe-eyed subjects ruled by a right-wing government; both Children of Men and V for Vendetta feature this somewhat unimaginative theme, and yet both end up kicking ass.

At first I expected CoM to be a shitty second-rate action movie (coincidentally, also my expectations for V), but almost immediately it began to show surprising depth and richness. For whatever reason I love dystopian near-future stories, but even given my positive bias CoM was exceptionally well done.