seriously, Marlena's death was just disturbing

Cloverfield, with Lizzy Caplan and several other attractive twenty-somethings. But she's the most attractive. This is one of those movies, like Ultraviolet, where I think I was ambivalent on it initially because of my succeptibility to succumb to the frames of others, ie, the people who I watched it with. But now that I think about it, I really liked it. I like monster movies; and I love movies that really make you feel like you're they're, that you can get into. And this had both in spades. I honestly wasn't too bothered by the camera stuff, just got a little impatient with it at times, but I can see how it would really really kill the movie for some people. It does make me want to get a fire extinguisher and first aid kit for the house, offhand. Like any good zombie/monster movie, it sets the stage for all sorts of imagination-games after. Good stuff, I hope they go places with the setting. Oh! And Caplan's character, interestingly, weirdly, had the same Malkavian pendant on that I had in high school...which exactly one and a half people might get the reference of, so...well, I found that strange and cool.

Better Off Dead, with John Cusack, and Diane Franklin, who is adorable as a French girl. Surreal, surprisingly so. At first I thought the mom was perhaps just soft in the head, and/or that the movie was just badly written, but finally I got through my stubborn framing of it to realize and better appreciate the willful absurdity. So, realizing it's just an insane movie (that perhaps accurately describes the psyche/perception of the teenage main character), I like it a lot more.

28 Weeks Later, with Rose Byrne and Jeremy Renner. Oh, and Imogen Poots, and Mackintosh Muggleton, who have some pretty fun names. First one was better, I think. This one, it was a nice expansion of the setting, but it was...stunted. The characters could have been developed more (as the one the really more developed lost his mind pretty quickly), the setting was worth digging into a good deal more (though I can see why they'd shy away from getting into political attitudes of other countries, but really, if you're going to expand the setting for the purpose of a bigger narrative, might as well go for it). So...yeah, I liked it, but it was an addendum, I think.