Just got back from watching De-Lovely.

Well... the songs were nice.

Looks like Teppy gets to add one to her zombie army.

Nah, De-Lovely isn't a deal-breaker for me. I liked it well enough, but I'm glad I only paid matinee price, because it had some problems. (Though despite those problems, part of me wants to see it again.)

So I just watched the Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow trailer, along with the clip. Is there a pull for the movie besides the cast and being a special effects extravaganza? I mean, it looks cool and all, action-packed and retro-futuristic, but I was wondering whether the hype surrounding it had to do with more than the fact that everything is CGI but the actors.

I had NO IDEA Peter O'Toole was so disturbingly sexy.

Ah, but now you have learned!

And are wiser for it.

I had a deeply disturbing Peter O'Toole crush going when I was 20 or so. This lead to me watching Caligula for class credit, among the other highlights.

Is there a pull for the movie besides the cast and being a special effects extravaganza?

I dunno if it's a pro for general audiences, but Pulp-era style adventure stories pretty much ensure my rear in a theater seat regardless of who the stars are. This is sometimes a bad thing, as it means I was unable to take a pass on The Phantom.

This is sometimes a bad thing, as it means I was unable to take a pass on The Phantom.

Heeeeey. I liked that one.

I love HTSAM.

Definitely better than Charade.

Saw Manchurian Candidate last night and liked it quite a bit. I found myself favoring Angela Lansbury's icy evil and subtle sexuality over Meryl Streep's bombastic performance, but I still appreciated that Streep was trying to reinvent the role instead of copying it. Liev was good and extremely woobietastic--he quietly broke my heart in the scene where he runs into Jocelyn (and learns that his single grand passion has been nothing but a youthful folly on her part) and during the heart-to-heart with Ben in his office. And I loved that Rosie had her own agenda--Janet Leigh's Rosie in the original has always struck me as a tad too conveniently sympathetic ear.

Denzel impressed me the most though. I'd always felt that he had an innate ability to instantly command a room in whichever role he played, but in this, he seemed shrunken, small, and broken, and believably so.

The movie was also a neverending parade of familiar character actors. I had Hey, It's That Guy-itis by the time the flick ended.

I'd always felt that he had an innate ability to instantly command a room in whichever role he played, but in this, he seemed shrunken, small, and broken, and believably so.

I thought he was believably so, but appropriately inconsistent. Sometimes you could see the Major, sometimes you could see the man. Sometimes you could see what it had all done to him. I loved that -- when he first is ignored by Shaw, his face shifts from businesslike to crushed to something inbetween in a scant second. I loved that moment.