1733 - Cabin in the Woods

I'm late to this film and all those in the geek-a-verse have already gone on and on about it, and I'm not going to go into specifics and ruin any of the fun.  What this is is a genre-bending meta-fest that in a really fun way plays with and deconstructs the horror genre.  It's a film that you can't really pick apart in any serious way because the whole thing is intended to be ridiculous.  You could say it's a bit too clever for it's own good, but it's a lovely amount of fun.  It's still in the theatres if you haven't treated yourself to it yet. 

1727 - The Avengers

I was getting pretty excited about this film the days leading up to its release.  I've been following all the lead-up and previous films.  I mean, it's a tremendous plan and very smart the way that Marvel has gone about building their universe.  You can only imagine what they'd be doing if they still retained the film rights to all of their characters.  It becomes slightly difficult to combine the reality-based world of Iron Man where regular people use machines to be super, and then something like Thor where it's something else entirely.  That said, I think this worked and the tones blended together nicely.  It's hard to juggle that many stories and characters, but Whedon does it and with grace and style.  Each character works very very well and builds on what we've seen before.  It's nice seeing Tony Stark comfortable with Pepper Potts, and cracking wise on the side.  It's awesome to watch Captain America turn into an actual leader of his dysfunctional group.  It could be that Hulk was my favorite of the whole bunch though.  I loved Ruffalo as Bruce Banner, but I thought that the choices they made with Hulk were inspired. Lots of great stuff there (although his shift wasn't well explained...)
If I have a complaint it's that I felt like waaaay too much time was spent on that ship in the sky.  I swear we spent well over half the film in that location and it made the film feel a bit small because of it.  I don't envy the Marvel team as they go back to the stand-alone films to lead up to an Avengers sequel.  Once you've put the bar so high, how do you do a stand-alone justice?  And how do you explain why these guys (or some of them) aren't just always helping the others out?
Of all the solo films coming up, the one I'm hoping for most is a Hulk film starring Ruffalo.  I'd line up for that one.

1702 - Toy Story

Now that my son is about to turn three we're starting "movie night" in our house.  A day I've been looking forward to with him since… well… I even knew I was having a kid.  The only true way to re-experience a film for the first time is watching it with someone who hasn't seen it - and that goes double when watching it with a kid.  He really really got into this.  He laughed in some really interesting places.  Got emotional and invested in the characters, and when it was done he instantly wanted to watch it again.  It'll be interesting to see what he thinks of it tomorrow, but it was top marks from him tonight.
Now - how did I feel about the film again?  Well, first I forgot that Joss Whedon worked on the script.  So that was fun.  I also noticed some little easter egg things that I never noticed before.  I'm going to say a lot of lovely things in a moment, but I couldn't help but notice a big flaw in the film this time around.  Buzz Lightyear spends the majority of the film believing that he is not a toy, but a real space ranger.  HOWEVER, when Andy comes into his room, he plays dead just like all the other toys.  Why would he do that?  Why would he play along with this boy instead of confronting him like he does all the other "creatures" in the room?  This actually bothered me quite a bit and I might search around to see if Pixar's ever been called on that hole and what their response is…
But other than that it's a really great film.  From a story perspective it's a really great example of escalating conflict.  Things get worse and worse in this film and the planting and paying off is done with a shitload of skill.  If you've missed this film for some reason, it really is a must see.  I can even let the Buzz thing go 'cause the rest of the film is so damn great.  So… it'll be interesting to see how soon he forces us to watch this again!