The projectionist who called me and the inventory supervisor "a bunch of girls" for refusing to watch The Strangers is screening it with the house lights up and the door open.

Heeee. It looks pretty scary.

he said it was pretty good with that creak in his voice which tends to indicate it could have been better.

I watched half of Juno last night, before falling asleep (surprisingly early, but I've been tired lately).

There was a lot I liked about it (the first half that I saw, I'll try and watch the second half this morning). But there was a *lot* that was bugging me. There was so much about so many characters that seemed.... affected. Juno's pipe being one of the big things. I don't think it's Ellen Page's fault. She seems to be a decent enough actress. It seems likely to me to be the direction. Or perhaps the affectations were Ellen's idea (it's the sort of thing a young actor would feel more comfortable with) and Jason Reitman wasn't willing as a director to really talk her out of it.

Anyway, there were things I liked, but the affectations were bugging me.

I admit I've only seen the TV commercial for The Strangers, but...it looks incredibly similar to Funny Games (which looked like the most utterly pointless waste of film ever).

Home invasion, creepy villains, screaming, running, flailing, lots of blood. Yes?

Sean, if you've only watched the first half, about half of what you've seen so far is the crappy part. After about 20 minutes, the dialogue calms down and stops rhyming and the movie gets much better.

After about 20 minutes, the dialogue calms down and stops rhyming and the movie gets much better.

It was already getting better by the time I fell asleep.

And really, my problems with it are pretty slight. Affectations are an easy crutch for younger actors, and easy enough to understand when actors aren't yet comfortable with themselves and their abilities. So, while it does bug me, the rest of the film is good enough that I'm willing to overlook it.

it looks incredibly similar to Funny Games

That's what I thought, too, but my movie-reviewer friend said it's different: more conventional and (subsequently) more terrifying, at least in parts.

Juno's pipe being one of the big things.

Juno's pipe I saw as something a "quirky" girl would affect in a small town, just because. ::coughnotthatiidentifyoranythingcough:: Her mannerisms didn't bug, for that reason. The dialogue in the first 20 minutes did, but it does calm down.

Rudy Wurlitzer talks about his career on Maud Newton's blog. This is probably more literary than movies, but Wurlitzer wrote a few of my favorite movies.