Vacation means Movies

Saw some movies over the extended Christmas break ... there are a few I'd recommend, and one total clunker!

Valkyrie (3.5/5)
A decent movie. It was interesting, well made, decently acted. However, it failed to grab me and really make me "into" the movie.

Burn After Reading (1/5)
This movie was a steaming pile of self indulgent crappola ... is that too strong for a family blog? This was a Coen brothers movie, the follow up to their excellent No Country for Old Men from last year. Since I really like that movie, I had high expectations for this one. I was disappointed on all counts. The characters were basically lame, there was no plot. I happened upon an extra which was the Coens saying effectively "we made this movie because we had some characters that we thought would be fun for certain actors to portray". Meaning, "we can make any movie we want, so we threw this together because we thought it would be fun to work with these guys". I was very disappointed. I was totally surprised when I found out afterward that the movie had made $140 million at the box office.

Traitor (4/5)
This was a very relevant and current subject matter which makes the film very engaging. The topic was terrorism and Islam and the ubiquitous good versus evil theme. Don Cheadle was really good in the lead role. The movie definitely made me think about terrorism and who exactly terrorists might be and what we can do about them. I never was bored with the movie, though the plot was not very far off the "normal" order of things.

Iron Man - This one still holds up after I've seen it now three times. Just a fun, engaging, thrilling story which never loses me. They develop the character of Tony Stark well, there are top notch actors and technical production is first rate. A very good movie.

The Incredible Hulk (3.4/5) - A fun watch, but not horribly deep. The CGI Hulk was a little cheesy. William Hurt as the antagonist was a little over acted.

Movies I've seen this year (in the theater/a few video):
Iron Man - 4.2/5
Wall-E - 4.0/5
Traitor - 4.0/5
The Dark Knight - 3.9/5
Kung Fu Panda - 3.5/5
Valkyrie - 3.5/5
The Incredible Hulk - 3.4/5
Horton Hears a Who - 3.0/5
Jonah, a VeggieTales Movie - 2.4/5
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull - 1.9/5
Burn After Reading - 1.5/5