Quick check in and movie lists

Hey everyone. I apologize for the lack of updates, and I really do have no excuse this time; I've just been lazing around NYC, enjoying the wonderful weather before the true brunt of humidity hits. I've also been seeing movies. A ton of them, in fact; if you count the two movies I saw on the plane ride over here, then I've seen a movie a day since I've been out here. I've seen, in order:

Coraline: I saw this for the second time, but this time in 2-D, and while it's much better in 3-D, it still worked really well. Wonderful film, and one I'm picking up as soon as it comes out on DVD.

Taken: This was a very weird film, with a lot of stilted lines and a really lame ending, but good action scenes and some very good tension throughout, especially in the scenes shown in the trailer. I can't exactly recommend this as a good film, but you can do a LOT worse as action films go.

Summer Hours: This is a pretentious French film about a family going through an estate sale. No, really, that's basically it. Yes, there's a theme of the changes that France has gone through from one generation to another, but really, this wasn't the most engaging film of all time. Some very good acting in it, though.

Up: I saw this for the second time, and this time it was in 3D. Having seen it in both 2D and 3D, I can confidently say that there is no advantage to seeing it in 3D except for the chase scene with the dogs in the middle of the movie, which is a lot of fun. But there is very little else if anything that the 3D adds, and it drastically darkens the picture on the screen, which is a shame considering how bright and beautiful the color scheme of Up is. If you haven't seen it yet, see it in 2D. You truly won't be missing anything. Also, the film was somehow even better the second time around, since I could pay attention to more of the details, and appreciated how the story had a lot of very subtle foreshadowing in the beginning. Great film.

Psycho: What a tremendous film. I hadn't seen it for close to ten years, but the scary scenes are still as good as they get, and Anthony Perkins as Norman Bates is perfect and utterly creepy. The film is definitely way slower than I remember it being, but because it's Hitchcock at his best, it still holds your interest, and the big reveal at the end in the "fruit cellar" is still shocking and done as well as it could have possibly been. I watched this with an awesome and mature eleven year old who is into horror films, and she immediately wanted to see The Birds once Psycho ended. Gotta love her taste.