Watching...

whole bunches of movies:

Donnie Darko: A glorified X-Files episode..."dude, what if like, the future was, like, happening, like, all the time, right, like right at the same time as the present, which would really be the future for like, somebody else...whoooaaa!" Apparently, the kids all dig this. Sometimes, the kids are wrong.

Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith: OK, when Anakin (what's up with that name, anyhow?) puts on The Suit, it's pretty cool. Other than that, this movie (and, in fact, the entire "pre-quel") is pointless, ponderous, pretentious, poorly written, dreadfully acted, but filled with big, glorious, wonderful empty special effects. Ewan McGregor as Obi-Wan does a dead on impression of Kenneth Branagh playing Alec Guinness...which I guess is a compliment. Natalie Portman gives perhaps the worst performance by a female actress in a major motion picture since Sofia Coppola in The Godfather Part III (what is it with IIIs? The last good III was the Super Bowl the Jets won)...so maybe she'll make a Lost in Translation in 10 years. Or not.

Beyond The Sea: At last, a Bobby Darin biopic! This wasn't too good, but I did like the way Kevin Spacey (the noted auteur) played with the conventions of the bio film format. He got a little too cutesy with it sometimes, and I'm not sure he let the other actors in on the plan, but at least he's out there taking some chances...unlike, say, Scorsese with The Aviator.

The Hobbit (the animated Rankin and Bass feature from the late 1970s): Not half bad, actually.

The Lord of the Rings (the animated Ralph Bakshi feature from the late 1970s): More than half bad, actually. Pretty wretched. Why was Aragorn (John Hurt (!)) so pissed off all the time? Lighten up, dude, you're gonna be king someday. Not in this movie, though. It ends after the Battle of Helm's Deep.

Chitty Chitty Bang Bang: The children were watching this one the other day. It's perverse. Truly Scrumptious? The most shameless stripper wouldn't have the nerve to use a name like that. And that scene with the Bismarck lookalike and the Swiss Miss chick dancing around the table is just...disturbing. Maybe Tim Burton should remake this one next.