Movies with Friends

In contrast to my usual practice of communing alone with a movie, I've seen a couple of them in the company of friends over the last several days. First off on Thursday night I saw Babel, to best describe this film all I can say is to think Crash on a global scale. In fact for those of you who saw Crash you'll find a fun "hey it's that guy" moment from the Haggis films cast near the end of Babel (Kudos to Mandy for spoting it first). The plot concerns three seprate yet interconected stories, the conection between the first two, an American couple vactioning in Morocco and a Hispanic nanny and her charges from San Digeo, is rather esay to make, but the angry deaf teen and her father in Tokoyo dosen't really seem to make sense as part of an interlocking storyline until the end of the picture. Babel makes my unoffical top five list for best films of 2006.

Last night, after my first experince at Fudruckers, Jackson and Lisa finally got me to fill a rather large hole in my knowledge of this decades films, when I finally saw Gladiator, as culmination of the couples fairwell activites prior to shiping out for Japan. I liked Gladiator, real crowd (or should I say mob) pleaser, complet with a creepy Joaquin Phonenix and Russell Crowe choping peoples heads off. The film also features the lovely Dane Connie Nielson, who was Detective Bensons temporary replacment on Law & Order: SVU (that's where I'd seen her before Jackson!). My favorite Ridley Scott film is still Matchstick Men.