Seven movies

Recently I had the opportunity to do little besides watch DVD's for a couple days, so herewith my reactions, quantified using a highly subjective rating system in which 10 means I loved it and 1 means I think the director should be banished from Athens.

Underworld and Underworld 2
4 out of 10
No compelling story here, just vampires-versus-werewolves action, with a couple solid English actors included so that some lines are delivered well. I did enjoy the winged-vamp-bat trying to push Kate Beckingsale's truck off the road, it was just how I'd imagine such an event would look. Interestingly, the werewolves in the first installment were good old-fashioned costumes worn by actors, but they're CGI in the follow-up.

Dark Water
5 out of 10
I don't like the horror genre at all, but I had to rent this because Connelly's (very sad) character has my daughter's name. The casting and acting are quite good, but I fail to find anything redeeming about something that's supposed to disturb me.

Master and Commander
4 out of 10
Shockingly bad for 10 Oscar nominations. How can so much money be spent on making a movie in which not one character is believable and the story is not worth telling? The fundamental dramatic tension is between an English naval captain, who gets jolly drunk each night at dinner, commanding his ship on an important war-time mission, and ... his first mate and friend who would like to study some lizards on the Galagapos islands, but is really inconvenienced by all this war stuff. I don't accept the premise that anyone could care how this "tension" gets resolved. This film may just be worthy of licking the boots of Mutiny on the Bounty. But probably not.

The New World
6 out of 10
I have mixed feelings about this one. It is a moving love story, but it is very slow, with many long, stylized nature shots. We had to turn on the subtitles, too, because when some actual dialogue comes along, you can't afford to miss it.

V for Vendetta
4 out of 10
This one was somewhat controversial when it came out, with conservatives panning it for glorifying terrorism, which sounded trite to me, so I wasn't going to be surprised to find some worthy drama here. But there really isn't any, because ideologically this movie adds to up a big zero. It's inconceivable that the characters in this movie feel anything about "freedom," because they display no understanding of what it is.

Fever Pitch
7 out of 10
That's right, this silly romantic comedy with Jimmy Falon and Drew Barrymore is the best movie I've seen lately.