Easy A (2010)

A little white lie snowballs into huge drama. This is a real gem of a flick that gently builds to a John Hughes 80's style finale'. Funny, witty and easy to watch the laughs come quick and natural. The only hitch was a couple dumb stereotypes and a ridiculous statement about the civil war, but it was minor and quickly passed. The lead is amazingly polished and confident but hey its Hollyweird. So jump into a gumdrop high school where being blonde is the norm...put on your big fluffy pink slippers and grab a big bowl of popcorn and let the fuzzy begin! Recommended.

Skyline (2010)

Aliens appear and take over the planet in 3 days. Not what I had hoped, but not as bad as some are saying. I think the hype is hurting this flick because its a pretty fair watch. Players are less than stellar, FX are good.. both in line with Cloverfield (2008) . Despite the wide net thrown in the set up, the story is narrowly focused. Try to keep expectations in check and you will much more likely enjoy the watch. On the plus side there are some cool details if you pay attention, and if you are a fan of alien monsters and biotech there are some very respectable sequences. There was a lot of possibility with this one but unfortunately it comes up short. Fans of Captain Simian & The Space Monkeys (TV Series 1996) will recognize Rhesus 2 instantly.

Inception (2010)

A group of thieves who crash dreams to steal information is hired by a super connected industrialist to plant information instead. Borrowing from Dreamscape (1984) and mixing The Matrix (1999) style themes and action, this movie comes out swinging but alas fell short of the hype for me. I thought they over used slow motion and made scenes unnecessarily loud and busy. Some of the major story elements made no sense (why the van? why not big money's private jet?). On the plus side the idea is a cool one, even if its 30 years old, and some of the FX were very cool. Players and mechanics were all up to par and the end can be viewed as a twist, set up for a sequel, or set up for a twisted sequel. Where ever you come down on this one, its not a waste of time and will likely keep you entertained if not enthralled. Somewhere between the upper end TV dinners and really good Chinese take out.