Thank You for Smoking I laughed, I was entertained, I was caught by surprise. Kept me interested, made me think a little, made me want more. A joy to watch, probably watch it again at some point soon. ~3.75 stars. PCU Kindof a fun movie, but falls short of Van Wilder and probably a few other college/hijinx movies. Overly formulaic. Not really my genre of interest. Woulda got 5.0 stars if Goo Goo Dolls had been the party band like they were supposed to be, instead of Clinton crappiness. ~3.0 stars Big Fish Seen it before, but watched it again for the first time in years. In plain terms, this is a very special movie that, imo, is lightyears above 99% of the rest of Hollywood junk you'll see in a given year. Not perfect, but ambitious, sensible, and generally successful in its endeavor. ~4.0 stars Fargo Overrated trash. Couple of good acting performances save it from being even worse. ~1.75 stars Elf Disappointed. I dislike Will Ferrell almost as much as I dislike Adam Sandler and Jim Carey, but thought maybe Favreau's influence on this movie could bring it up to something better than average. Not terrible, but certainly average. ~2.5 stars Mystic River Extremely disappointed. Gets my vote for one of the most overrated movies of the 2000s. Take a Law & Order episode, add 60 minutes to it, dumb it down, and there you have it. ~1.75 stars Gone in 60 Seconds I pretty much hate Nicholas Cage and hate Hollywood special effects and WATFOs, but I still ended up liking this movie. Must be all the car stuff, I have certain weaknesses. ~3.0 stars The Aviator Except for the scenes involving the Katherine Hepburn character, this was a great movie. Very good performance by DiCaprio. Exciting to follow, nice visuals, intrigue. ~3.25 stars The 40 Year Old Virgin A pleasant surprise considering pretty much every comedy to come out in the last 15 years has sucked. Nothing here that I'd call "classic", but definitely an example of good casting meeting a good script. Big fan of the actors involved. Strayed away from being too predictable. Didn't harp on the "virgin miscues" that I assumed were going to plague the movie ad nauseum. Well done. ~3.5 stars Blow Goodfellas II? A little too similar for my taste. For the most part exciting and stuff, but never really grabbed me and won me over. ~2.75 stars Schindler's List A classic, meaningful, substantial, epic work. Great, great, great performances by Neeson and Fiennes. Could've used more dialogue (damn you Aaron Sorkin!). Movie would've been better without the final scene that pulls you out of the past and into the present. ~4.5 stars Gangs of New York A terrible, superficial, self-importent, over-Hollywooded crapfest. Probably one of the worst directed, acted, written, shot, produced, etc, etc, movies I've ever seen. You know you're in trouble when the usually-regrettable Cameron Diaz turns out to be the glue that actually holds some of this sloppy mess together to achieve some semblance of decent film making. DiCaprio couldn't be more wrong for his role. I just get the feeling Scorsese got halfway through this tripe and gave up trying to do anything halfway intelligent or dramatic with it. There are people that like this movie?? I guess you throw in enough fight scenes and blown up stuff and there's enough lunkhead males out there to keep something like this from flopping. *Hangs head in shame* ~0.5 stars