Catching up on movies

Since I finished last quarter we're still trying to catch up on movies we wanted to see. So we've been to the cinema with a more or less consistent frequency for the last few weeks. When we're too tired to go out (or too stingy, because movie tickets are expensive, even with the student reduction ...) we rent a movie at our local DVD rental joint.

So, driving home from work last night we did Good Night, and Good Luck . That's an excellent low-key (B&W), low-budget movie about talk-show host Ed Murrow at the end of the McCarthy period. C's mom recommended this movie to us a few weeks ago, she had had some acquaintance with Murrow in the sixties, probably through the movie industry ...

C likes political movies and especially movies about conspiracy theories. We saw a few of those last year, including Fahrenheit 9/11 (one that didn't impress me as much as Bowling for Columbine, I thought Michael Moore lacked tact on at least a couple of issues, although I found his revelations on the Saudi relations quite stunning), Super Size Me and The Corporation (which was interesting, although a bit in the super cynical style of Michael Moore too). But I think the best movies I saw were Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room (about the better-than-fiction wheelings and dealings of the corporate world and stock markets) and the Control Room (about the news station Al Jazeera's coverage of the beginnings of the Iraq war).

In the documentary category we also saw the lovely March of the Penguins (not much controversy there). We are now eagerly waiting for the (bound to be controversial) Why We Fight.

Among the movies seen recently are Brokeback Mountain (quite touching, actually), The Chronicles of Narnia (a sugar coated adventure story), Pride and Prejudice (big romance and costumes), the Constant Gardener (hey, yet one more of those conspiracy theories) and the 40 Year Old Virgin (not as funny, but also not quite as dum as I expected). We are still waiting to see Capote, King Kong, Syriana, Munich, Memoirs of a Geisha and Casanova (they were filming it in Venice while we were there for our honeymoon ...) As school closes in on me, I'm not sure whether we will make it ...