I watched Children of Men over the weekend. I loved it to bits, and find myself hard-pressed to amass adequate words to express how much I loved it. Afterward, it was the little things that stuck with me, like the ongoing thing with Theo's poor feet (the guy in the camp who brought Theo the sneakers was made immediately sympathetic because of the gesture) and the way Cuaron used animals, running loose and wild in the world without children. I loved that all manner of cats and dogs tended to flock to Theo for some reason. That was a lovely little touch.)

The cinematography was stunning, and my, what a group of terrific actors. And the girl who played Kee held her own against Clive Owen and Pam Ferris. I loved her.

Ooh! I knew about Clive, Chiwetel, Julianne Moore, and Michael Caine, but I didn't know Pam Ferris is in it. I just watched HP&PoA today with the 6-year-old, and was happy to be reminded she is in that.

I watched Superman Returns today, and it was pretty good, despite requiring truckloads of suspension of disbelief.

I also, finally saw Little Miss Sunshine, and it was GREAT! Very nice little picture with a lively cast of characters and clever scripting and a beauty pageant scene I couldn't stop laughing during.

Also, I did notice that the movie basically boils down to "A family takes the daughter to a beauty pageant, the end." Simple story, but a lot of character and heart to make up for it.

I really liked 13th Warrior, but I don't remember how the Vikings were costumed. I don't think they had the horned helmets.

The costuming was pretty good. No horned helmets. Mostly no helmets.

The Rohirrim costuming in LOTR was actually really good for Norsemen.

I watched Superman Returns today, and it was pretty good, despite requiring truckloads of suspension of disbelief.

That's a lot of water displacement, man.

Perhaps P-C uses a concentrated suspension? Handwaving XL.

Children of Men struck me on a lot of levels. All the things Vonnie said, plus, the disparity between how the haves and havenots deal with a pandemic... the haves "Just don't think about it" even though they are miserable too. Boy, that moment chilled my blood. The havenots turn to faith. That really struck me too.

Also, the very real possibility of something like that happening here and now made the film less uplifting than a possible clarion call. What with falling sperm counts (See Theo Colburn's work) and fertility clinic ads all day on pop radio stations. Eep.

I also appreciated the dark humor among the characters. That is how humans would react...very real, I thought.

The thing I noticed on CoM this time around (I've seen it three times...I may be a little obsessed...) was that, in a movie that contains maybe five minutes of people not shooting at each other, Theo never once picks up a gun. The only time he picks up a weapon of any kind is when he knocks out Sid in the refugee camp (and he doesn't hold onto it afterwards). Very rare for the protagonist of a movie with this much action in it. (I can't bring myself to call him an action hero because he's not, he's a protector.)

I noticed that too! It was a surprising feature that made the character all the more real to me.

Boy...I seem to be stuck on that word.

The other thing that really struck me was in the refugee camp after everyone had seen the baby and had what amounted to a religious experience. It took them exactly a nano second to forget the only salient point in that moment and to start trying to kill each other again.

What the? Shouldn't the soldiers have surrounded them and spirited them to safety?

And it was cool that the rescuers were a proto-Greenpeace model.

That's a lot of water displacement, man.

Is the "just add water" schtick from the comics?