Batman Begins, Wallace & Gromit in the Curse of the Were-Rabbit, & The Brother from Another Planet

Batman Begins was a pretty good movie. Maybe even the best Batman film. A lot less scene-chewing than the first Batman. And by first Batman, I mean the Tim Burton one, not the Adam West one. That was entirely made of scene-chewing (BANFF!). The Tim Burton Batman only had Jack chewing scenes. The thing that made this one good was that Bale was a much stronger Batman than Keaton. I'm not sure what they're going to do with not having Kate Cruise in the next film, but I like the other places they took the story. Felt very real. Less comic-booky.

Wallace & Gromit in the Curse of the Were-Rabbit was typically great Aardman animation. I loved the bunny-Wallace. Cheese! Very enjoyable all around. Gromit may be one of the best characters in animation of all time. It just made me happy. And that doesn't happen all that much for me while watching films.

The Brother from Another Planet was John Sayles on race. Watching the interview with him and Maggie Renzi on the disc was also interesting, as it pretty much just confirmed that it was an intentionally created film to discuss issues of race. Strathairn and Sayles as the white men in black were pretty disconcerting, and to know that a lot of scenes were done with very small and cheap effects. Nice job there Sayles. He's right that the little simple effects were much more effective than if there had been lots of stuff. They allowed for more focus on the story of how people approach race in the US. Yay for Sayles's liberal filmmaking.