I've had a chance to watch a number of movies lately.

Worth Multiple Viewings:

Grizzly Man: Tim Treadwell was an ecological activist who lived among the grizzly bears in Alaska for something like 15 seasons. During the last few seasons, he took along a video camera for a documentary he was making. Unfortunately, he was killed and eaten by the bears he tried to protect before he could finish filming. A noted documentary producer took his footage and turned it into a documentary about Treadwell himself. Treadwell was a character who defied easy categorization . . . I’ll just leave it at that and say, “You need to watch this.” It’s brilliant.

V for Vendetta: Pretty much everybody who enjoyed the graphic novel this is based on hated the movie. That’s reasonable. Once you see what it could have been, you don’t enjoy what it is. I didn’t read the novel, and I enjoyed the film. It raises many issues – especially dealing with terrorism and freedom – that I think need multiple viewings to really sort through.

Worth Watching Once:

Howl’s Moving Castle: A beautiful and interesting piece about a young girl who is cursed by a witch with old age. She has to live by her wits and take a job as a housemaid in a wizard’s magical castle while she tries to break the curse. Unfortunately, about 2/3 of the way through, it stops making any sense whatsoever. (Others tell me this is about the point the movie stops following the book it’s based on.)

Mirrormask: Like Howl’s Moving Castle, in that it’s beautiful, but becomes somewhat confusing towards the end. A teenage daughter of circus performers is sucked into the magical world of her drawings, and must find a way to awaken the White Queen before the minions of the Black Queen capture her.

Not Worth Watching:

Doom: Wretched dreck. Has once sequence – a five-minute first-person-shooter sequence – that’s worth watching. It would be considered innovative, except it was first pioneered OVER FIFTEEN YEARS AGO in videogames. About time Hollywood picked up on it.