I have to see a movie this weekend. (Oh, and you should also try to.)

It looks like the holiday movie season has climaxed. I can't see movie-goers having more or better options in the next month or so.

What I have to see: these are movies that I know I will like before seeing them. It's just a matter of finding the time to go out and enjoy myself.
For Your Consideration - Christopher Guest's latest, with the regular cast (from Spinal Tap, Waiting For Guffman, Best in Show, A Mighty Wind), this time playing the hopeful (if naive) cast of a film awaiting the possible?, probable?, and then likely!? Oscar nominations.
Stranger Than Fiction - I heard Farrell pulls off the transition to drama as well as Jim Carrey did with Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Good peer reviews have kept my interest alive in this one (I had my doubts from the previews, but have been reminded how skewed they can be).

What I want to see, eventually:
Bobby - Written and Directed by Emilio Estavez. Enough said. Just kidding. Sort of.
Deja Vu - If nothing else, a good excuse to eat popcorn.
Fast Food Nation - I was surprised, and then impressed that Linklater was hired to fictionalize this book instead of letting it going the shock-you-mentary route.
Sweetland - My mom said it was good.
Tenacious D in the Pick of Destiny - Eh, maybe not as good of an excuse to eat popcorn, but Black promises laughs. Good afternoon with the dudes movie.
The Queen - I've heard only good things about this film that humanizes the Royal Family and gives a less tabloid-inclined picture of these usually ordinary people. Plus director Steven Frears has impressed me in the past (Dirty Pretty Things, My Beautiful Laundrette).

And, Flags of our Fathers and Little Miss Sunshine are still playing at Riverview...

There's a lot out there people.

What I have seen recently:
Babel - Would-be-great-movie. Definitely still worth seeing. I just need this question answered: Is the failure to communicate everything at the end of the film completely intentional? Or are they letting you make the final point/connections because they couldn't (skillfully, easily) bring it all togther in the end?
Casino Royale - Did they modernize this story solely for better product placement? That bugged me. Otherwise the film went along with my Bond movie expectations.

*BONUS - Mini Review*
The Fountain - I was nervous before seeing this one, for Aronofsky (the film's director, see also Pi and Requiem for a Dream). That sounds funny, but I really didn't want this director to blow his first 'big budget' on a big budget kind of movie, if you know what I mean.

Selling out, or crowd pleasing, might be what I mean...

But he didn't. When I walked out of the theatre it was obvious to me that Aronofsky made exactly the film he wanted to make. And I thoroughly enjoyed it.

From the sounds of it, however, I might be taking a defensive stance when I say how good this film is. The reviews I've seen of The Fountain have gone as low as half a star out of four! Some reviews are better, and some are great, and some critics merely defend the film, as I am, but seriously, half a star!? I generally hesitate to make judgements of people that I don't know, but I think that this film either went completely over the heads of some of these critics, or maybe (I'll be gracious) they just missed the point.

Ok, the plot is a little hard to follow, and even though I don't mind working a little bit when I watch a movie, maybe it all could have been made clearer - but I feel like I still only say that to satiate the remarks of some of these critics. They try to excuse the film, calling it ambitious (at best), but at no point did I feel like Aronofsky was trying to accomplish too much, or that he just had too many ideas for one film... It felt more to me like he really launched himself at this project with all of his energy - the result being that the audience gets sucked in to the whirlwind of fantastic imagery and storytelling that is Aronofsky's mind. If you just allow yourself to go along for the ride, amidst whatever confusion you my have early on, you are rewarded by the end with the kind of euphoric energy that the film's main character also experiences at the film's conclusion.

So go see The Fountain. You might like it.