Catching up post

So, I've taken a break from this for awhile and instead of trying to do a bunch of full posts I am going to do a quick catch up post on everything I've seen since my last post.
Of course, from my collection I did watch one of my all-time favorites in Kill Bill Vol.2. Where Vol. 1 is the ultra-violent ode to a particular style of film making, Vol. 2 is something close to modern Shakespeare. Dialing down on the violence and dialing up some of the most punchy and outstanding dialogue I have ever scene in a film, Vol. 2 requires a viewing of Vol.1 for it to fully work, but it is one of the films that contains certain scenes that I want to rewatch over and over before moving deeper in the film.
Falling in to the same category is Inglorious Bastards which I started the year declaring as the past decades best film. A comment I'm still willing to stand by regardless of the few flaws this film has. What Inglorious does better than any film I have scene is it lingers within a scene and squeezes every drip out of an outstanding script and amazing performances. I remember it's ad campaign focused on the violence and I often wonder what someone who only wanted violence thought of the films talky first 20 minutes set in the quite French country side. That scene convinced my wife to give the film a chance and while I know she did not feel the same way about the film as I do, it speaks volumes to me about how great that opening is.
I also saw Coraline recently which my wife purchased after I had passed the "C" in my collection. It's a quirky and compelling animated film that targets older kids but is also is able to appeal to grown ups as well. Very enjoyable and worth watching.
I have managed to enjoy a few rentals as well. I thought The Crazies was a worthy entry in the zombie/diseased killer genre. I also saw Adam which is a quirky rom/com that relies on it's characters to create and maintain an interest for the audience. To this end the film is extremely successful and worth watching if you can find it.
Finally, in the midst of one of the worst summer movie season I can remember I have made it out to the movies twice. Once for A-Team and a second time for Predators. I am not counting Toy Story 3, which was terrific for what I got to see, because I spent half of my time in the back of the theater chasing my daughter. While the A-Team managed to be entertaining and enjoyable "turn your brain off" fun, Predators was a huge disappointment. Basically, I was not overly impressed with the films opening which included Adrian Brody free falling and trying to get his parachute open and after an interesting scene with predator "dogs" the film steadily got less and less compelling. In the end I think making any Alien, Predator or Terminator films is difficult given the quality of previous ones and the fact that I always feel like there is a better film that could be made using these characters that what we have gotten over the last ten years. Pity.
The coming weeks are going to busy but I intend to start doing full posts again. We shall see of course as the second half of this year is already beginning to look very busy.