I've seen two movies in the past two days.
Yesterday was my day off and I celebrated by doing what I normally do: driving to the farthest possible movie theater and seeing something ridiculous (see: Sex and the City) or beautifully filmed and well plotted (see: The Fall). After much internal debate during which time I decided that Mamma Mia was too ridiculous to spend seven dollars on, even for me, I opted on The X-Files movie.
Three Things:
1) I've never seen the series, so I don't really know what I'm talking about, but I know about Mulder and Scully's Josh-and-Donna relationship and this is exactly the kind of sequel I would have envisioned for them.
2) This movie raised a lot of ethical questions and then didn't harp on finding answers to them, which was pretty classy, if I say so myself.
3) Creeeepy, with the severed limbs and the dogs and especially the pool scene oh my God.
3a) WEST VIRGINIA = BAD NEWS

Then, today, just now in fact, I saw the movie I've been waiting all summer to see. That's right. Brideshead Revisited. Intern N, Intern T, Intern A2, Intern J and I went to see it. It was the perfect group, because we're all mature enough to handle complex plots, which, love them as I do, not all of my new friends here are capable of. Afterwards, Intern N (who LOVED IT; yay!) said that he intended to read the book. I told him to go for it, but to expect a lot less kissing and a lot more religious angst.
On that note,
Three Things:
1) I would like to disagree with whichever reviewer it was (the New York Times?) who likened the lead actor, Matthew Goode, to a piece of asparagus. If he was at any time inert (I only noticed hints of inertia in the last twenty minutes), it was only because his character was.
2) Gorgeous. Everything. Everything but Emma Thompson's teeth. Very British, those. White though, which was good. Nonetheless, she was beautiful in the movie (evil but beautiful) and she's aged well.
2a) Ben Whisaw? Awesome. Hayley Atwell? SMOKING HOT. Seriously, none of us who went would be interested in her on an ordinary day, but were I suddenly plonked in the middle of the film (or Line of Beauty, for that matter, which she was also in), Charles wouldn't be the only character dabbling in sexual confusion.
3) The edits that were made were perfect. It was streamlined and, although there was of course a certain point of view that this director was aiming for, it was pretty darn faithful to the spirit of the book.
3a) Still: not enough Anthony Blanche.