Oh man, I'm so clever...

I'm in Washington and aside from seeing friends and having long wonderful talks in an empty Bothell Denny's, I've watched a couple films.

I saw Good Night, and Good Luck yesterday and enjoyed it a lot. I think it's a very timely film that had the good sense not to make a point of highlighting that fact. I thought the cast was great, the cinematography was interesting and fit the feel and time period of the story, and for such a dialogue heavy film it never lost my interest. A nice solid film from George Clooney who has proven himself to be a good director.

Million Dollar Baby is another film by an actor/director, this time it's good old Clint Eastwood. Unfortunately, the movie was pretty lame. Being a sports movie it has its share of emotional moments and it keeps you on the edge of your seat. I suppose the ending could be pretty powerful too... if I hadn't been so bored. I zoned out toward the end and lost track of what was happening but that wasn't too much of a problem since it's a pretty predictable film with a "controversial" ending that predictably garnared it much praise, criticism, and a heap of awards. It's not a film that's horrible in any sense (except maybe being horribly overrated) but it's definitely not great. It draws its power (and I use the term loosely) from depicting heartbreaking situations and not through well developed characters we care for. Whether that's always good or bad is open to debate but, in this case, I'm going to have to say it's a bad thing.