Movie Time means Time for the Movies Time

Oh, hello there! I didn't see you come in! I know I've been neglecting the ol' blog recently, but that's because I've been suffering from

MOVIE FEVER!

which is a condition in the same family as being boy-crazy or reet petite.

Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Salty Brine Chest Tropical Island
Well, we all knew what we were getting with this one. The entire cast of the previous two movies returns for another overlong, sumptuous swashbuckling adventure. The plot starts off incomprehensible (does anyone actually remember what happened to Johnny Depp at the end of the last film? And who exactly is the East India Company rep who has snatched Davy Jones' heart?) and gradually fades into obscurity as the films debarks into a series of silly set-pieces. The best scene is doubtless the pirate's council on Murderous Blood Island (or wherever), in which a large group of racial caricatures brawl over the arcana of the pirate's code. Keira Knightley and Orlando Bloom gamely recite their incredibly stupid Hallmark-card dialogue, and Geoffrey Rush pulls out ALL the stops and delivers a scenery-chewing but extremely entertaining performance as Famous Pirate #3. Fun drivel.

28 Weeks Later
The first ten minutes of this movie are the most harrowing, frightening images ever set to film. The rest of it lags on a little long and delivers some rather heavy-handed digs at the United States Army; ultimately, it fails to live up to the lonely, Heart of Darkness style psychological terror of its predecessor, but it's certainly frightening and entertaining. Robert Carlyle gets to reveal his inner Begbie and the child stars are capable and not annoying.

Fracture
"I killed my wife untraceably with some fava beans and a nice Chianti! FLPLPLPFLLLLFLPPPPLFFFFPPPPPP!" Ryan Gosling is great, and this movie has the World's Fastest Relationship ("Hi I'm your boss call me later can we not do this at dinner I don't think it's working out"). The central puzzle is very interesting until about an hour out from the end, when it's possible to figure it out and get hella bored. Probably worth seeing.