Watched The Crazies. Not all bad. In the end I was getting rather strong 28 Days Later vibes, and Radha Mitchell screamed way too much and was mostly useless. No Selena, not even a Hannah. Actually, throughout were overtones of 28DL, which may not be fair from what I hear of the original The Crazies, and it dealt with the human/political element a skosh more.

Some nice suspense, a bit of gore, but not in a horror-porn way I don't think.

Other thoughts:

1) I keep wanting to spell Crazies with an x

2) the end wasn't as awesome as that in Slither, and not as funny as that of 28 Weeks Later

Thank goodness. It will be weird trying to separate him from Johnny Storm in my mind, but he's the only candidate I've seen mentioned for consideration who both fits the role and can act.

On a casting older note, Alex Ross said it should be Jon Hamm, but I guess it wouldn't work for an origin story.

We watched Moon, which I liked, and Motherhood, which basically felt like I was living two hours of my self-entitled, modern existence. If I wasn a Mahattan mother, I'd want Uma's head on a platter.

Yesterday, I saw The General at the Paramount with Christoph Bull playing an original organ score during the movie. I don't really remember much from the score when I saw it on AMC, but it's kind of neat to see the same movie with different music. It's still great, and I still think it's the very first action-comedy.

We also watched The Hurt Locker, which was good and intense and sometimes interesting, even though I didn't really like the main character. I'm not sure you were really supposed to, though. That being said, he was the main character, so I assumed we would actually learn something about him and why the hell he acted the way he did. And we didn't. It was all right there in the epigraph. Which was disappointing. I really liked Sanborn, though, and I hope that actor gets some good work. I loved the scene where he was crying about wanting a son because it occurred to me that we almost never see that scene. It's always the WOMAN who wants a baby.

So I thought it was good, but after all the hype, I expected more. But that tends to happen when I see the movies everyone is all OMG IT'S SO AMAZING about.

I'm not sure you were really supposed to, though. That being said, he was the main character, so I assumed we would actually learn something about him and why the hell he acted the way he did. And we didn't.

The best take on the character I read in one of the reviews was to think of him in terms of seeing an artist at work in a movie (painter, poet, writer, composer, whatever) and that kind of maniacally focused energy.

I personally find the worst movies that focus on artists to be the ones that try and draw a direct correlation from the work back to the person's life to "explain" them, because it's usually so reductive, so I didn't mind the lack of explanations. If that makes any sense.

That does make sense. It's not like there are easy answers for how a person behaves. But I didn't feel like I got enough insight. I watched the behind-the-scenes feature, and Kathryn Bigelow said she wanted to make a movie about a guy who was addicted to war, who got off on the adrenaline rush, and that generally came through, and I liked that it wasn't overplayed—it was clear that, despite really being into the excitement and near-death experiences, he still had other (sometimes conflicting) emotions—and I liked that the other two members of the team served as foils, but I just wished I knew how the hell he ended up like that. Especially when he has a frickin' son.

I think I just made myself like the movie a little more because it has more depth than I gave it credit for.

I saw it in the theater (I don't know if you did or saw it on DVD), so most of the movie I was spent gripping the hand rails, not knowing if any of the three main guys were going to make it. I'd managed to go in unspoiled on that subject, and I almost wish I had been spoiled so I could watch the movie slightly less tense.

so most of the movie I was spent gripping the hand rails, not knowing if any of the three main guys were going to make it.

I saw it on DVD and, oh yeah, I didn't know if the three main guys would be okay. And it's truly a testament to the intensity of the bomb-defusing scenes that even during the very first mission with Jeremy Renner, we were all going, "Fuck!" and "Oh shit!" as if he really could get blown up so early on in the movie. Near the end, however, I knew all bets were off.

I saw it on DVD and, oh yeah, I didn't know if the three main guys would be okay. And it's truly a testament to the intensity of the bomb-defusing scenes that even during the very first mission with Jeremy Renner, we were all going, "Fuck!" and "Oh shit!" as if he really could get blown up so early on in the movie. Near the end, however, I knew all bets were off.

Especially since two of the three "name" (or name-ish) actors got blown away in their first scenes in the movie.

BTW someone in Natter pointed out that Jeremy Renner played Penn on Angel, which completely blew by me at the time. So THAT'S why he looked familiar!

re: The General

I like the scene at the very end where he swaps positions with his girlfriend so he can salute and kiss at the same time.