Mini-reviews on a couple movies I've watched or re-watched recently.

Watched this movie without having any inkling of the plot. I'll give this movie a solid 6 out of 10. All the acting was fine, the shots were reasonably attractive and the story pacing kept me from getting bored.

One huge, massive, gargantuan gripe. Don't show the vampire in vampire-mode. Keep the violence and supernatural athletic ability implied. Until computer graphics get better, it's just going to look cheap.

A couple weeks later, I'm left with the impression of how mean-spirited the movie is. There is no redemption or balancing of the moral scales. This is probably what I deserve for asking for more morally ambiguous endings.

An enjoyable and well-executed bit of voyeuristic class-warfare porn.

Observations:

- Our poor family, like the families in the movie, seriously accumulated a lot of crap.

- That squirrel dream was a wart on the face of independent movies everywhere.

- The scene with the army recruiter was heartbreaking. Escaping from your circumstances is harder than anyone can really imagine.

The movie does an extraordinary job in the early shots of capturing the sheer boredom of being poor. There's a lot of romanticism in contemporary magazines and literature about a time before children were over-scheduled and building resumes in elementary school. This is self-serving grass-is-greener claptrap. Kids get bored, and poor kids get out of your mind bored. I'm talking throwing a tennis ball on to the roof and waiting for it roll back down for HOURS bored.