I like a lot about that trailer. At the very least, the marketing team for this movie understand what people want out of a Bond film.

My worry is that the pop psychology of What Makes Bond Bond will be annoyingly pat, but hopefully it will be keep to a minimum.

I saw The Covenant earlier this morning (DH is reviewing it, and I had nowhere better to be), and now I'm at work. Blech on both counts. (I think I would have enjoyed The Covenant more had the actors been even remotely distinguishable, but of the 5 guys, 3 of them look exactly alike. I think they were trying to make the hero and the villain mirror images or something, but the overall effect was that I couldn't tell them apart, and had no reason to care. It was like watching a cut-rate WB pilot.)

Jessica, is The Covenant going to make me laugh and laugh and laugh, much like The Craft did? Because if that's the case, I may not wait for DVD.

I swear, when I first saw the trailer to that thing I thought David DeCoteau had somehow gotten a theatrical release for one of his Voodoo Academy style mannequin fests. But it's by one of the executive producers behind Underworld.

It really looks like the stupidest, most purile idea for a movie I've ever seen.

I'm sure Uwe Boll is working on another video game movie right now that will reclaim the crown.

Jessica, is The Covenant going to make me laugh and laugh and laugh, much like The Craft did? Because if that's the case, I may not wait for DVD.

It's almost too boring to be funny. Of the terrible movies in theatres now, I highly recommend The Wicker Man. (If, of course, you've seen the original. Aside from spoiling the ending, I'm not sure it'd be as funny to someone who wasn't aware of how completely LaBute was missing the point.)

At the very least, the marketing team for this movie understand what people want out of a Bond film.

I was just going to say exactly this.

But it's by one of the executive producers behind Underworld.

Not a stunning recommendation.

I saw The Protector and Hollywoodland tonight. Two very different movies. The Protector is full of amazing kick ass Muay Thai, most done by Tony Jaa, who is graceful and strong and makes walking up walls look easy. It has one extended action scene which is done in one long take as Jaa fights his way up and around four floors that will blow your mind. People were cheering and clapping thoughout the film (and, yeah, laughing at some ludicous plot twists, but that's par for the course in this kind of movie).

Hollywoodland is a very carefully crafted movie with some lovely performances. I had heard some negative things about Brody's performance, but I thought it was nuanced and that he was incredibly charismatic (those eyes kill me). Like all right-thinking people, I usually hate Ben Affleck, but he was very much an actor in this movie and I was impressed with his performance--and, Diane lane hit it out of the park as always. The film is not as deep as it wants to be, but there is some interesting stuff going on and lots of compelling moments.

I felt that the script for Hollywoodland had been massaged to give both Brody and Affleck equal screen time, and somewhere along the line the original reason for making the movie in the first place got lost. I thought most of it was very pleasant to watch (the performances were all terrific), but I could never quite put my finger on why the filmmakers thought I should be hearing this story, and after awhile I lost interest.

Yeah--it was definitely overthought to the point of losing energy--The DH calls it "First Feature Disease." I found the performances and some of the scenes strong enough to keep me inside the film, though.Of the three of us at the theater last night, one of us thought Toni Mannix killed him, one (me) thought it was suicide, and one thought Mannix did it on behalf of his wife, and I lfound it impressive that none of us felt cheated in terms of story, but that we all had different opinions.