movies The Island - A Michael Bay flick where Scarlett Johansen runs around looking like a porn star then doesn't show any skin in the sex scene even though she wanted to. Damn you Michael Bay, damn you. The movie is an amalgam of previous sci-fi flicks, the only interesting thing being the sheer amount of product placement.

Crash - winning the 2005 Oscar mandated a viewing. This film reminded me of Traffic, perhaps because

1. Don Cheadle is present in both films.
2. Both films share a gritty hand-held style of cinematography
3. All disparate stories eventually become entwined.
4. Car crashes lead to traffic jams.

The director doesn't preach, just shows us different events and lets us interpret. Solid acting and editing. I'm not sure that it was Best Picture worthy though, must have been a weak field last year.

Mission Impossible III: A two-part episode of Alias with lavish production values. The team aspect was played up considerally (woo Maggie Q), Hoffman was cool, but the story was weak. McGuffin device only existed because the writers couldn't think of any new nuclear weapon. It's not like Pulp where we had no idea what was in the suitcase. Action scenes weren't memorable aside from the money shot.

ILM did solid work in this one but the bulk of their shots were invisible effects. It's great that they were done so well that I didn't notice them but ... come on. I want to see huge tripods rising from the ground, balrogs fighting wizards, epic sci-fi battles. The demystification of visual effects is one thing, going away from imaginative / innovative FX shots is another. People come into theaters expecting to be blown out of their seats, and it's difficult for filmmakers to consistently do that. 3D cinema can't come any sooner. I think it also has something to do with TV production values getting exceeding better. Heck, 24 consistently has better action sequences than most movies.  ¶ 3:31 PM