I saw both Much Ado about Nothing and Pacific Rim today, the latter with a former roomie.

The former was very well done, an interesting modern-day adaptation. Amy Acker, Clark Gregg, Reed Diamond, and Sean Maher were all superb. And for the first time, I saw what people are talking about when they describe Fran Kranz as hot (maybe it's the short hair that finally did it). I didn't like Denisof as Benedick though - his nasal voice was just so unpleasant that I hated hearing him speak Shakespeare's words, and his attempts at physical comedy have always been cringeworthy to me. Also didn't like all the Dogberry stuff, but that's true of the play itself and not Nathan Fillion's fault (he was certainly a lot more tolerable than Michael Keaton in the role).

Pacific Rim was just made entirely of awesome. Perhaps the best giant robot vs. monster movie I've ever seen.

Teaser trailer for Idris Elba as Nelson Mandela: [link]

When I click, that goes to a trailer for How To Train Your Dragon 2?

Despicable Me 2 = however many minutes of complete delight.

Jesus, how did I manage to grab that URL by mistake? Talk about a franchise I know diddly about...okay, here's an article with embedded teaser.

Long Walk To Freedom: (short flight dragonback?): [link]

Thanks! We licensed several minutes of footage for Long Walk To Freedom so I'm looking forward to it for more than just the obvious reasons of Idris and Elba.

Pacific Rim was sufficiently monsters-versus-giant-robots for me. I agree that the plot was occasionally...wah?, and I feel like maybe two of any of the plot points could have been removed without any problem.

Also, y'all, I am seriously worried about Jeff Bridges' choices lately.

I feel like maybe two of any of the plot points could have been removed without any problem.

For instance, was there any point at all to the fact that the kaiju were clones or...something?

I liked the movie more the second time around since I wasn't expecting anything more than what it was, so I just appreciated its efforts to be decent in the character/plot department and awesome in the robots vs. monsters department. I did think it was neat that the heart of the movie was a father-daughter relationship between a black man and a Japanese woman.

There were too many white guys with brown hair. It took quite a while for me to be able to tell them apart.

I did think it was neat that the heart of the movie

Agreed. Would have been even better if there were more than two women with speaking roles, one of whom got like three lines.