…mostly because it’s on, but I can’t look at the queen without thinking of her as Sarah Connor. That usually doesn’t happen to me.

Watching Battlestar Galactica this season, I have been struck, particularly recently, by similarities to movies. War movies.

Two episodes ago, I was getting a strong Private Pyle vibe from the Chief. This week, I was getting a strong Apocalypse Now thing from Starbuck’s crew. Not quite a river, but similar. The further they go, the stranger things get, and the more tense.

I’m wondering what next week will bring.

While watching the Donner Cut of Superman II for the first time, and doing a little web research on the film, I came across the fact that the director brought in to direct Superman II after Donner was removed from the project, and the director of Superman III, Richard Lester, was also the director of A Hard Day’s Night. The Beatles film. For some reason that absolutely blows my mind. I’m sure many out there already knew this, but it was a discovery for me.

Over the last year or so I began the process of reading through Ian Fleming’s James Bond novels. I have been a fan of the movies for a long time. In fact, when I was younger, when I had to pick “a hero”, I picked James Bond. But I have never read the books. Motivated by the release of Casino Royale, I decided to start at the beginning and work my way through them.

I’ve read three so far – <i>Casino Royale, Live and Let Die, and Moonraker</i> and I have been enjoying them. Well, I enjoyed the first and third so far. LaLD is plagued with problems of racism which detract from the narrative, and I found it the least interesting of the three. But <i>Moonraker</i> excited me enough to continue with the series.

The books differ quite a bit from the movies. They take place earlier, for one. The novels take place in the post WWII period and that is very much a part of them. Bond is also less of a womanizer in these novels, and indeed seems to fall in love with one woman. He’s also more damaged. More of a brute at times. And yet utterly civilized.

But all this is a sidetrack to the main concern of this post. The new movies. I was really pleased with Daniel Craig and Casino Royale. Though I never minded Pierce Brosnan as 007, Craig really nailed it for me, with an intensity that was missing since Connery. So after seeing that, I was looking forward to the new movie.

It now has a name. <i>The Quantum of Solace</i>. It’s a bit of a strange title for a Bond movie, in my opinion, but since it is an Ian Fleming related title, I guess it works. Frankly the title doesn’t matter as long as the movie is decent.

More information at the link: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/7206997.stm

I just finished watching The Fountain and I really liked it. I thought it was a beautiful and moving film. It helps that it was a love story. I thought the visuals were gorgeous and the story worked for me as well. I’d heard mixed things, so I wasn’t expecting much, but the film surpassed my expectations easily.

The music was fantastic as well.