It worked for me

It's almost 2:00 AM and I just got back from a late showing of POTC: AWE. I know some of you out there did not care for it, and I respect that. But, I confess, it totally worked for me. Perhaps it worked because I knew what was going to happen going in -- I'm all about spoilers. ;-) IMHO, the characters all acted consistantly based on their motivations. And maybe it is because I'm middle aged and have been roto-tilled by life some so I was totally OK with the ending (i.e. you take what you can get (not in the stealing sense), be it relationship-wise or life in general.

I've always liked the POTC franchise but I'm not as invested in it like I am/was the LOTRs. Maybe that is another reason I liked it and some of you didn't. We all come to movies with different criteria and different expectations. Oh, and I think the critics that thought it was confusing were on crack -- I followed it fine.

OK, YMMV. Now I want the soundtrack (hmm, I never replaced my soundtrack from the original...)

Well, now that I got that out of the way I can concentrate on my report later today. :-/ Off to bed in hopes of actually accomplishing something later.

Hot Fuzz

OK, so *that* was hilarious. :-)

If you haven't heard of it, this is a new movie by the same people that did Shaun of the Dead. At this point I'm signing up to see anything that these folks/SImon Peg does.

The movie has two distinct parts: set up and pay off. While I was watching it I thought the set up went on a bit too long, but after seeing the payoff I don't know what I'd edit out -- everything got used. I really liked maestrateresa's observation that the film is a wacky cross between every buddy-cop-all-hell-breaks-loose movie with Wicker Man; I'd add some To The Manor Born and Brit-detective-in-the-country-where-people-start-dropping-like-flies element to that, as well as a Shaun of the Dead love of over-the-top gore (but not *too* much of the latter, really). Very clever movie.