"What I Watched" Wednesday - Avoiding Frakking Spoilers

I Want Somebody to Eat Cheese With: So-son Indie comedy about an overweight actor/comedian struggling to find a job and a relationship. Couple of funny bits, like Amy Sedaris's cameo as the odd school counselor, and I liked the interplay between the lead and his best friend, but overall, this didn't do much for me.

Lions for Lambs: Less than engaging political drama which tells three parallel tales: a Right Wing politician (Tom Cruise) using an interview with a reporter (Meryl Streep) to break the news of a new military strategy he's spear-heading; a Political Science (Robert Redford) professor trying to reach a student who is squandering his potential; and two former students of the professor, now soldiers implementing the politician's strategy. To be honest, the only parts of the film that kept my interest at all were those revolving around the professor; Tom Cruise's character felt like an alternate universe version of Frank T.J. Mackey in Magnolia, like if Mackey had decided to enter into politics instead of horribly misogynistic public speaking, but that might just be a product of both characters spending 90% of their screen time being strident with a slightly combative reporter.

The Good Night: Off-beat romantic comedy about a musician (Martin Freeman) who tries to escape from the doldrums of reality with his grating girlfriend (Gwyneth Paltrow) and obnoxious best friend (Simon Pegg) by exploring the world of lucid dreaming, where he begins to fall in love with the (literal) girl of his dreams (Penelope Cruz), something that becomes complicated when he discovers that his dream-girl is apparently real. Not quite what the previews had led me to beleive; the interaction between Freeman and real-world Cruz is not the main thrust of the film at all, but merely a brief stop along the overall journey. As such, I actually enjoyed the film more than I thought I would; the idea of spending half of the movie trying to watch Freeman reconcile his idea of Cruz with real Cruz made me cringe. That being said, I still wasn't overly impressed with the film; good performances aside, it just didn't engage me enough to get anything other than a "eh" feeling out of me.

Alien vs. Predator: Requiem: When I mentioned that I had watched this and someone asked "Who won?" my response was "Not the audience." It might not be the most original comment on the film, but it's definitely the truth.

Battlestar Galactica: Thanks to Cap'n Bubbles loaning me the DVDs, I've spent the last few days catching up on season 3 of Galactica, and then got to watch the first few eps of the current season courtesy of Hulu. Boy, am I glad I didn't stumble across the opening credits of Season 4 with their "Oh, by the way, these characters are Cylons now" teaser before finishing off part two of "Crossroads"; it's that sort of easily-stumbled-on spoiler that made me finally get off my butt and get caught up on the show before Michael Ausielo managed to spoil it for me. While I'm still enjoying the show, I have to say that the full-blown love I had for the first season or two just isn't there anymore, and I'm not sure why. One too many instances where characters tear into each other, only to kiss and make up the next episode, and then tear into each other an ep or two later? Or maybe it's that I always enjoyed Baltar more when he was the weasel operating in secret, instead of the almost universally reviled weasel he's now become. At this point, I'm finding the overall mythology of the Cylons and the mystery of Starbuck's destiny the most engaging parts of the series.