i've probably watched more movies in the past couple months than i have in the past 3 years. does it matter that i have a new flat screen tv? maybe. is it a great form of escapism? sure. is it a nice way to detox and procrastinate? yes.
here's a few favorites from the past couple weeks

Rosemary's Baby (1968) - Mia Farrow, Ruth Gordon
Love, love, loved it! I want the Gothic New York Apartment all decorated in yellow and Mia's clothes, except for the nightgowns. I have a hard time imagining how this was received when the movie first appeared. I t was fascinating to watch the relationship dynamics of men and women in the sixties. It holds your attention without violence (minus the kitchen knife) and gore and has an eerie sense of humor throughout the movie was great.

Savage Grace (2007) - Julianne Moore
I picked the jacket up several times at the movie store and finally rented it a couple weeks ago.
I was not prepared for what this move offered. Based on the true story of the relationship between Barbara Daly and her son Antony. Barbara marries above her class to Brooks Baekeland, heir to the Bakelite plastics fortune. It begins in the 1940's, newly married and with their first and only child Anthony. Anthony becomes estranged from his father, who sees him as a failure (because he's queer) and as he matures he becomes increasingly close to his lonely mother. sex, dysfunction, incest, and murder. I was mesmerized the entire movie wondering what would happen next and exhausted when it ended.

Examined Life (2009)
Filmmaker Astra Taylor accompanies some of today’s most influential thinkers on a series of unique excursions through places and spaces that hold particular resonance for them and their ideas. Featuring Cornel West, Avital Ronell, Peter Singer, Kwarne Anthony Appiah, Martha Nussbaum, Michael Hardt,Slavoj Zizek, Judith Butler and Sunaura Taylor. Singer talks about the ethics of consumption, Zizek questions current beliefs about the environment while sifting through a garbage dump, and while driving through Manhattan, Cornel West compares philosophy to jazz and blues, reminding us how intense and invigorating a life of the mind can be.

The Reader (2008) - Kate Winslet, Ralph Fiennes

It's a coincidence that I rented this the same weekend that the Holocaust Museum opened in Chicago. Post WWII Germany, it tells the story of Michael Berg, a German lawyer who as a teenager in the late 1950s had an affair with an older woman, Hanna Schmitz, who then disappeared only to resurface years later as one of the defendants in a war crimes trial stemming from her actions as a concentration camp guard late in the war. Some very compelling relationship dynamics and imagery of Auschwitcz near the Polish town Oswiecim. When I visited Poland I opted out of making the trek for fear of being too emotionally impacted. My trip was very intense and difficult for a multitude of reasons, but I now regret having passed up the opportunity. I remember there being much criticism about the film for treating horrific subjects artistically, but I had gut reactions, cried, and felt the complexities of the character's choices and their abusive relationship.