Ok, so I lied about the new site being up soon.

Here's a quick recap of what I've seen recently:

The Parallax View: 12/15. It's just better than middle of the road, but even the mediocre 70's paranoia thrillers are ten times bettter than what's out today.

The Cider House Rules: 13/15. Yeah, I'm sure if I thought about it, I'd know how cheap it is, but sometimes you want something you don't want to have to think about. Unlike Big Fish, though, it doesn't shove its stupidity in your face; it puts on a guise of honesty the whole way.

Saved! 11/15. It's a good teen movie, but not really anything more than that. Jena Malone should be reaching a crossroads soon. I hope she doesn't follow the unfortunate Leelee Sobieski.

The Tin Drum: 12/15. It looked beautiful, and the first half-hour or so is near flawless. The rest gets a little mired in hyper-symbolism or not enough symbolism. Maybe it's just not being familiar enough with specific German history.

Primer: 14/15. Excellent and original sci-fi flick. Try not to read anything about it and just go see it. What it does so well is that its universe is such a natural extension of the real world, it's all the more awesome, despite the fact its scope is severly limited by its budget.

True Grit: 8/15. The girl's good, but everything else is just middling. John Wayne definitely has had better acting performances; it's a shame he got the pity Oscar for this instead of The Shootist, where he actually is deserving of one.

Solaris (the Tarkovsky one): 7/15. Gets lots of creepy points, but then again, so does Event Horizon. It touches on a bunch of really interesting issues, but doesn't really do anything with them. I wouldn't mind the slow pacing as long as it actually went somewhere.

Ed Wood: 12/15. A nice story from back when Burton had real emotion in his films. The staging of everything is a nice homage.