Saw Up In The Air. Liked it a lot. I thought it was a great look at what some of "normal America" is like, which can be rare in movies. Clooney was great. It touched on some things that struck a chord for me personally, left me a bit melancholy.

Just the clips I've heard on NPR made me really sad and depressed, although I am sure Clooney is great in this. I can't quite make myself want to go see it, but I'll probably check it out when I can rent it.

Hee hee.
The box set that I bought long ago that included 3 versions of Close Encounters of the Third Kind comes with a poster sized flow chart of what's in what version and what's been cut etc.
How funny.
:D

Yes, I found that chart amusing as well. I wanted to retitle it "Wow, We've Been Floundering With This Movie, Haven't We?" Still, I'm very glad to have all of that stuff.

Over the weekend I saw Avatar for a second time. Enjoyed it just as much as the first time. Lani and I both expected that this time we'd spend more time looking around the screen and then afterwards realized we were just as involved as the first time and didn't really do that.

Noticed a few things I'd missed the first time (such as, the so obvious in retrospect) fact that the avatars had five fingers/toes per limb whereas the Na'vi have four. Noticed some throwaway lines early in the movie that are more explanatory once you know what happens later in the movie.

Saw It's Complicated. It is a perfectly pleasant adult romantic comedy. It is always nice to see one not involving 23-year-olds, or 30-year-olds acting like 23-year-olds. Good performances from Meryl Streep and Alec Baldwin. Though a best actress nom for Meryl Streep (such as the Golden Globe) is really just a reflex habit as it isn't anything transcendent.

Saw The International, a Clive Owen/Naomi Watts suspense thriller from earlier in the year. It was fine, really reminded me in tone of Sidney Pollack's The Interpreter from a few years ago. One problem is that the last act is preceded by an out-of-scale gunfight. It would have been fine in a Bourne movie but the style of the movie as a whole didnt' really support such a spectacle.

I think we'll put this in the Netflix queue. The trailers have made it seem really appealing, glad to hear it lives up to that.

I'd love to see that flowchart if it's online anywhere.

Well, this is the closest thing I could find. Hard to read, tho.
lol

So far as I know (having searched around since my second screening), all real Na'vi have four fingers (three and a thumb). All avatars (human-Na'vi hybrids) have five fingers (four and a thumb).