Then again, has there ever been a serial killer in movies who just strangled and dumped his victims in a ditch, without getting baroque (and thereby caught)? Probably not.

Um, Henry, Portrait of a Serial Killer?

I *still* need to see that. But in the same vein, Rue Morgue magazine (which is a fabulous read for anyone interested in any aspect of the horror genre) says that a new British movie called The Last Horror Movie is a top-notch re-working of the serial killer movie genre.

I though Dark City would be great, but it turned out to be merely good. It's definitely Matrix-y before The Matrix (and there's a bit of The Thirteenth Floor in there too), but it doesn't turn into a rock-'em-sock-'em action flick. Instead, it chooses to be so drenched in noir I could actually see some noir seeping out of the TV and falling onto the floor. It felt rather silly in parts. Naming your villains after mundane nouns may look like a good idea on paper, but the Gentlemen were creepier when they weren't made to deliver dialogue in supposedly disaffected tones.

Alex Proyas had a neat idea, but he didn't think it through very well. I'm not the kind of guy who usually watches these movies and points out all the things that don't make sense (hell, the implausibility of Nemo's ship in League navigating the canals of Venice didn't occur to me during the movie), but I had a lot of questions with this one. And it tries to delve into the age-old question of what makes us human, but doesn't really break much new ground, especially when the basic tenets of the "experiment" are so confusing. Also, when your villains can fucking alter reality, I have a hard time believing they'd be helpless if their damn coat got stuck on something or they'd just watch their prey get away in a car.

Still, it of course has a nice production design, and Neil Gaiman really likes it. Plus, Jennifer Connelly is gorgeous like a thing that is gorgeous.

For 'way too real for comfort' serial killer fare, I recommend "Minus Man" with Owen Wilson and Janeane Garafolo (no kidding!). It is the creepideepiest in its plausibility. So disturbing.

I saw the Bourne Supremacy this weekend. (By the way, a little PSA: when you show up to a film on its opening night five-ten minutes before showtime, the best seats in the house are not, in fact, unoccupied. Please quit asking. Thank you.) The handheld camera & the editing was a little bit much at times, but I liked it nonetheless. I just rolled with the almost impressionistic scenes. (Bob couldn't stand the camerawork.) I would advise people planning to see it to sit way back.

This is the kind of movie that really revs my engine, so YMMV.

I'm with Bon Bon. Most of the time, I LIKED the hand-held stuff. Instead of sitting back and admiring the slick storytelling and effects, as one usually does with thrillers, I found I got genuinely caught up and anxious. Maybe 20% less of it and I would have been even happier, though.

Joan Allen kicked ass and looked beautiful.

The hand held work and the editing only took me out of the movie in the Moscow car chase. I found I could forgive the rest because it worked so well in the close quarters fight with the other treadstone assassin. Joan Allen is a godess. Hell, even Damon improved.

That close-up fight was amazing. It's cool to see, in that kind of movie, a physical fight between two equals. I mean, the whole point of the thing is that Bourne is the most kickass spy ever or whatever, so really only someone else in the same program could even compete. Although I did keep waiting for them to bust through the windows.

I just liked the found-object nature of all of the fight scenes. Like, here is a hair dryer, a raw chicken, and some marbles. Go!

Bourne is like the MacGyver of fighting. Also, he was kicking Celeborn's ass!

I will admit part of the fun of the movie was just watching all those pretty people do exciting things. It could have made 60% less sense and I probably still would have enjoyed it.

I like what they're saying about Batman Begins -- because yes! Batman does not have superpowers. Catwoman is NOT part cat etc.

I love the MacGuyver aspect as well-- a nice tight way of showing how well-trained he is. In the first movie, where someone might lift a fire extinguisher, he took the emergency map of the building off the wall of the embassy. I'd never seen that before, and it was neat.

I also liked the way Franka Potente floated away. Since the movie was so grittily grounded the rest of the time, it stood out as something unreal.

Also, you were always following Bourne-- you could never see ahead to what he would do. It was tense.