Never Let Me Go had me dissolved in fucking tears as I recognized the futility of my pathetic would-be exceptional existence. The Future, same effect. Standard tearjerkers don't bother me, but sneakily dark movies about aging and mortality do.

I've seen it twice now with mixed feelings, but no snickering. The film I would compare (and contrast) it with is Sofia Coppola's Somewhere, which I found a pointless and annoying exercise in style that didn't make me care about its poor alienated hero in the slightest.

I watched Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy for the second time, this time not half asleep. It made a lot more sense. I haven't read the book, but I was curious to see if my assessment of the characters and their relationships, based on the movie, was even halfway accurate. According the virtual Cliff Notes for the books on…

I saw Eating, Deja Vu, Last Summer in the Hamptons and possibly others I've repressed. Hamptons was the most bearable, mainly because of a good performance from circa '95 Melissa Leo.

I saw the end of A Boy and His Dog in the theater, and it warped me for life. I'd come in early for the double feature, which was the more kid-friendly Close Encounters. (Who would program an R/PG sci fi double feature? Only seedy Manhattan single-screen theaters in the '70s.) Anyway, I had to ask my babysitter to…

I've seen it and agree. I could maybe see giving it a B-minus for the humanism and earnestness Keith talks about (which seem well intentioned enough) and for the cinematography, and a few amazing scenes.

I think it was very loosely based on it. "The Kingdom" is awesome, or at least the first half, which is all I saw. Back in the dark ages, when I rented it on VHS, the second half wasn't available yet, and I've forgotten what happened in the first half, so now the whole thing is sitting in my queue.

Does it also keep the boozing? I really hope so. I know comic alcoholism is un-PC now, but Captain Haddock's drunk episodes were always high points of the books for me.

War Horse is really super schmaltzy, but it seemed like Spielberg knew exactly what he was doing. He wanted to make an epic movie in the style of 50 years ago, with music telling you how to feel in every scene, and he did. It also looks beautiful. I didn't like it but couldn't downright hate it.

I think my main reason for ignorantly hating it without having read it is that its fans seem to think it's searingly brilliant, not just a fun read. Though Dan Brown has been known to induce similar pretensions in a slightly different group of people.

Roddy McDowell was fun. I have fond memories of local horror-show hosts, like Sammy Terry, so that part was good. The rest, mainly as '80s nostalgia.

I liked it for my own demented personal reasons, but the story-telling was incredibly sloppy. Unless I missed something. I even looked up the novel to find out if those loose ends led somewhere. As far as I can tell, the book was shorter, even more demented and made perfect sense.

I hated the first one. Assumed it was because I saw it on a 20-inch screen; everyone who saw it in the theater seemed to love it. Having seen the second on the big screen, I've changed my mind. The idea of these movies is much better than the actuality. Or rather: there is one cool thing that works (the Downey/Law…

That is the word. She looks nice in gypsy garb and isn't as painfully out of period as Rachel McAdams, but she has very little to do.

The Borders in our downtown just closed, and everyone is tearing their hair out and lamenting the lack of a sizable new bookstore in our crunchy college town. Suddenly everyone is burning e-readers and waxing nostalgic about bookstores they didn't bother to patronize when they existed. Mention Amazon and you could get…

Agreed. I was also underwhelmed by Woodley after her big scene in the pool, but guess I'm in the minority on that. She just didn't seem to do much other than hang around in a bikini.

Nick Nolte got in because he played a crusty recovering alcoholic who is listening to Moby Dick on tape. And because he's Nick Nolte.

True. She was one of the best parts of The Help. But I've seen all four of her performances and would choose Take Shelter or Tree of Life over that. She was also good in The Debt, an actual starring role, but it wasn't a great movie. Plus, fake accent.

I felt this way about Lost, but realize it's a tiny minority opinion. Had absolutely no interest in the characters or their flashbacks, but came back for freaky island shenanigans, and also just to see how long the creators could sustain the premise.

One good thing about living way out in the northern wastes: People don't text in theaters. Or talk. Or even show up, generally. The upside: virtually private screenings, especially of foreign films. The downside: takes three to six months to get those foreign films.