The Pictures

We have a long to-see list of movies before the Oscars in a month. Last night we saw The Last King of Scotland, which is getting lots of hype over Forrest Whitaker's performance. He is great and it's a good story but I'm not sure he deserves the Oscar.

Also good are James McAvoy and lesbian icon Gillian Anderson. McAvoy was adorable as the faun in Narnia and he's adorable here too, but it was difficult for me to have much sympathy with his character, a naive do-gooder who goes to Uganda out of boredom and casually becomes involved with Idi Amin. I mean really.

Notes On A Scandal was absolutely delicious! Judi Dench was superb and Cate Blanchett was right with her all the way. What a great pairing. Watching it was like watching Ripley, where I just couldn't believe the way things were heading but I was relishing every second of the mahem. I wonder how many middle-aged gay men secretly wish they were Judi Dench?

Children of Men has received a lot of mixed reviews but I love movies that have such a dark, depressing view of the future like this. It's been compared to Blade Runner and I have to agree, although this has a much more coherent story than BR. Clive Owen is very Harrison Fordish here. But, as always, when Julianne Moore appeared onscreen I wondered, "what the hell is Julianne Moore doing there?"

The art direction is just spectacular. I want to see it again just to be able to catch all that richness behind the main action.