I think Gina Carano could have made a great turn as a woman who kills with her thighs. Her triangle was a high point of Haywire. And it's not like it's a thespian turn, with the size of Black Widow's role. She'd have been serviceable at the acting and brilliant at the action. Which I think is better than what we got, in total.

I liked Chronicle. I'd never seen a found footage movie before, so I don't know how they normally handle the conceit. This was done pretty well, I think. Over 90% of the footage made sense with the parameters they'd set up.

It's been a while since I watched Akira, but I don't think you can have a passing familiarity with it and not get a Tetsuo vibe, really. It's very there.

I think it did a good job of painting teenaged boys as a vicious nasty but somehow not inherently flawed lot. A fair amount of nastiness there in general.

Fun, and I only had to look away to preserve my head a few times (although most of the audio felt too loud).

Seems like the perfect movie to have something after the end credits, but there's nothing there, FYI.

I'd never seen a found footage movie before, so I don't know how they normally handle the conceit

Usually one of the characters has the camera most of the time and you rarely see him or her, or sometimes the characters trade camera duties. All very handheld. The Paranormal Activity movies add security footage. With [REC], it's a TV cameraman. In [REC] 2, some of the SWAT team members have cameras in their helmets.

I'm really interested to see the movie because a lot of the trailer shots look like they cheat a bit (and I think one of the reviews said they do kind of cheat, hence the other 10%).

I don't think they were cheating in any of the trailer shots. There were a couple scenes where I thought that one of the characters being filmed would have flipped their nut if they knew they were being filmed, and I couldn't work out why they wouldn't know, and one where I was sure the person holding the camera would have stopped. Oh, and one where they explained just why it was still found footage, but it was a bullshit excuse.

Only once (not any of those times) do I clearly remember going "Wait, where is the camera now, and who's in control?" which seems to be pretty good numbers.

Saw Haywire and Sherlock Holmes last night. Husband liked Haywire, I found it really boring for the parts that did not have fighting. I wanted more fighting.

Sherlock was ridiculous and fun, although it took me about ten minutes to shake off the specter of Cumbermuffin and Freeman.

I watched Drive last night, and, damn, you guys weren't kidding about the violence. I agree that it's very stylish, and I dug it, but I felt the characters (especially the female characters) were underdeveloped. The soundtrack was great, though, and the movie is exquisitely shot.

It was so weird to see Christina Hendricks act scared, though. Also: geez, what a waste of Christina Hendricks.

Also, I just watched the trailer again, and I'm glad I didn't remember it strongly because it gives practically everything away, damn.

right? the trailer is a trip on that score.

what is your interpretation of the ending? Beau and I have different interpretations:

one of us thinks that we are to believe that Driver dies in the end. One of us thinks it is possible, but not clear that Driver dies.

I am with whichever one of you thinks it's possible but not certain. If they really wanted him to die, he would've died in that sweet shadow scene, which is what I was expecting. There's no good reason to have him live through that if he just dies in five minutes. Although I also expected him to maybe drive off a cliff. He should die in a car, after all.

so you agree with me. naturally. and I am with you logic-wise, but I see a narrative reason to have the movie end with him driving and not dying.

Nah, I agree that it's certainly more appropriate that the movie ends with him driving, but it's one of those things where I was so surprised he actually survived that scene. The movie does a lot of unexpected things. I liked it for being different, even though it was formed from classic tropes. I just really wished I knew anything about Carey Mulligan's character. In a weird way, the fact that everything was so understated makes it okay that the characters are underdeveloped, but sometimes I am greedy.

And the violence (in one scene) made me gasp out loud.

Was this the head-stomping scene? Because damn.