Well, yesterday evening, Ardith, some friends from work, and I went to see Cloverfield. I must say right now that I did not go in with terribly great expectations, but was very much surprised. There were many times throughout the film when they could have gone the Godzilla or zombie route, but I was extremely pleased that they did not. That, in conjunction with a very unique format, made this quite possibly one of the most "real" films I've ever seen. And I mean real in the sense that it really made you feel that you were actually there. I won't spoil it for any that haven't seen it, but I recommend it highly. Of course, the fact that there were soldiers and guns and explosions might have a little to do with it...

Talking about explosions, I saw two other movies recently. One was Dragon War (or, as they like to call it, D-War). Aside from some decent special effects and a bit of fighting, it overall wasn't a terribly great movie. It had the usual type of story, with some ancient power of good or evil awakening in the modern world and creating havoc as it searched for some powerful object, and the acting was, overall, not good at all. The other movie was Tears of the Sun. This I thought was decently done. It was, though, extremely sobering at times, when some of the horrors of African civil and ethnic wars were shown. However, it had special ops and Bruce Willis, so who can't enjoy that mix?