So. Clerks II and Dog Soldiers, which is a somewhat random pairing from the ol' Netflix queue.

Clerks II was great and horrible all at once. My internal calculus reports 20% incredible, 50% stupid, and 30% forgettable. Kevin Smith has some really great screenplays lurking around in his little pea brain but they're all obscured by insecure dick and fart joke humor. Too bad.

Dog Soldiers was... really kind of bad. The suit werewolves were supposed to be a response to the coldness of modern CG monsters, but unfortunately I've seen plastic-masked demons on Buffy with more realism and expression. All of the female dialogue in the film was badly written. Kevin McKidd is hot. That pretty much sums up the Dog Soldiers experience for me.

Next up, Murderball and Au Revoir Les Enfants.

Accepted was not a memorable film, but was pretty funny and had some pretty good lines. Justin Long always manages to amuse me, and it was fun to see how he pulled off creating a college out of thin air to fool his parents. Definitely a decent rental.

The Illusionist was a very enjoyable film, despite the questionable facial hair that was sported by many of the actors. I originally didn't want to see this, but I kept reading good reviews of it everywhere. In comparison to the similar magical-themed The Prestige, it wasn't quite as engaging or quickly paced, but I did find the ending to be very satisfying, especially since there were no >>clones or twins<< involved. There was a nice twist that I wasn't expecting at all that was extremely cool.

I just watched The Prestige last night, and I HATED Christian Bale in it, every single second of him. Which does not really add up to an enjoyable movie-watching experience, frankly.

I just watched She Done Him Wrong, and I am now completely in love with Mae West.

I watched the Laurence Fishburne Othello for class and liked it a lot -- wasn't expecting to see Michael Sheen, so that was fun. (Although I have to admit, Kenneth's quick glances to the camera every time he did something evil reminded me irresistibly of Jim from "The Office," and that made me giggle. A lot.) And yes, O is next in my Netflix queue, because I am shallow and dorky.

I didn't rent it, it was on TV, but last night I watched The Mummy. I had forgotten how much I liked it.

There is this one moment at the end, where Brendan Fraser kisses Rachel Weisz's character and then kinda nudges her nose with his, like an eskimo kiss. I think it is so sweet and I think I did actually 'squeeeeeeeeeeeeee" out loud.

I got the HBO documentary Thin from Netflix. Damn, that was hard. It was excellently done, but it was hard to watch people in such pain. I wanted to give them all a hug.

I was also furious. I was furious with insurance companies that cut payments for treatment long before the women were actually ready to leave (even the "good" insurance plans did this. One woman was a very successful pharmaceutical rep, and even her insurance crapped out after a couple of weeks). I think that shit was doing more harm than good, since these women felt scared and unprepared to leave, so they ended up relapsing, which just fed their bad self-image because they "failed," and so on. I was also furious with some of these girls' families. One 15-year-old girl's mother had an eating disorder herself (she even taught her daughter how to do it) and she wasn't even trying to help the girl get better, even though she already had liver damage. Another girl's father claimed her eating disorder was because she moved to Salt Lake City where people eat vegetables instead of "good" food and walk little dogs every day (in Salt Lake City?! For serious?). Those girls are screwed.

This week's crap rentals from Blockbuster were The New World and Tristan and Isolde. And crap they were. I cannot believe the review Ebert gave Tristan and Isolde--it was incredibly potboilery. The only appealing character was Isolde's maid.

The New World was interminable. Glaciers move faster than that movie. Somewhere there's a director's cut that includes even more long pans over calm reflecting waterways. Q'Orianka Kilcher was quite good, and Christian Bale is always delicious. But if I were out of Ambien it would've put me to sleep just as quickly.

I loved both those movies, though I do acknowledge they're certainly not for everyone.

I thought The New World was a gorgeous piece of film-making, but if customers (I used to manage a video store) asked about it, I always explained that it was rather slow plot-wise, but beautiful to watch.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Kiss Kiss Bang Bang. I've watched the first 2 times now, and it is just as good as I remembered it being. How can you not love Teenagers who just happen to be Ninjas who just happen to be Mutant Turtles?

Haven't watched Kiss Kiss Bang Bang yet, but my housemates loved it.

You know, I worked in video stores and theaters before, and it just ended up killing my sould when I had the dilemna or reccomending movies the customer would actually like versus movies they should see.

I find that the first TMNT movie has aged surprisingly well - at least if you have a built-in nostalgia for the characters. I don't know how the generation that grows up on the new CGI movie will react to it. I wish I could find a CD copy of the soundtrack - I played the hell out of it in 9th grade and still get the chorus to "T-U-R-T-L-E Power" stuck in my head.

Kiss Kiss Bang Bang is AWESOME. Val Kilmer is terrific, Robert Downey, Jr. hits a great note in his narrative line readings, and Michelle Monaghan is funny and HOT.

I think the last movie I rented was Dead Man's Chest. I had just divested myself of my entire DVD collection, and didn't want to buy it. It was the first movie I had rented in over a year.

OMG I had that! I've never seen the movie, nor did I watch the show, but I won the soundtrack as a prize from the kid's radio station (Radio AAHS, for any Twin Cities youth-of-the-90s). I had completely forgotten about that until right this second. Awesome.

Word on Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, by the way. Great flick.

We've currently got Idlewild and Prozac Nation, plus we Tivod The Philadelphia Story (my husband's never seen it, which I cannot abide) and Last Picture Show (I saw it once, forever ago) this week. God bless TCM.

I get a little hyperventilate-y whenever anyone brings up Kiss Kiss Bang Bang; I love it just THAT much.

Idlewild was very interesting. I actually thought it was great -- really original and with cool music -- but it's not one I'd have recommended to customers. As Skyblade said,

I agree with you about The New World. But, I really found Tristan and Isolde to be good. It was mostly true to the myth and the acting wasn't bad. It is watchable, IMHO.