Movies

Collateral:
Half a great film. Everything up to the scene in the jazz club is fresh, involving, perfectly executed and captures the 'flavor' of LA's physical and philosophical existence like nothing else I've seen.

Then, unfortunately, the wheels come off and it turns into a disorganized stew of running, car chases, shooting and contrived plot developments.

Still, worth a rental. Just turn it off after the jazz club.

Ring 2 (Americanized flava):
Listless garbage. Badly cast, poorly written & lifelessly directed....which surprised me, since the director did the Japanese Ringu, its sequel and also the original Dark Water, which is IMHO one of the best suspense/horror movies of the last ten years.
I loved the first one directed by Gore Verbinski, I thought it was actually superior to the Japanese original...but this one stunk the joint out.

Red Eye:
Excellent no-nonsense thriller by Wes Craven, who is notoriously hit-or-miss. This time he was on his game, and after the putridity of Ring 2 Red Eye was a marvel of compact, efficient storytelling, energetic direction and quality acting.
Cillian Murphy's turn as the Scarecrow was the best thing about Batman Begins, and he does nothing to hurt his stature in this flick.

I've also been making my way through the first season of Lost, which has been pretty good for a high profile network show. I can't help thinking how much better it would be on HBO, but it does OK for itself given the limits of broadcast TV.
The writing is all over the place- it seems like writers are assigned to characters or something, because some of them are consistently interesting and well written, and some of them have backstories straight from some JC screenwriting class that overdosed on Syd Field.
I like the fat guy, the bald survivalist nut played by The Stepfather, the middle aged black gal and the Korean couple best. Sawyer's character is played out and the gal bank robber needs to A: dry her fucking hair once in a while (no really, check it out- it's wet 99% of the time) and B: take some acting lessons- her solution to every dramatic plot point is to squinch up her eyes and affect a look halfway between needing to take a really big shit and trying not to burst into tears because she woke up too late for the hotel's free Continental breakfast.

Hudson described the proper frame of mind to approach it with:
"pretend it's the 1930's and your watching a Buster Crabbe serial at the theater."
Spot on.
If you cut it some slack, it's a fun way to pass the time.