Back To The Front

Well, after a week's vacation (and thank God nobody took the keys to my brand new Porsche) and a day spent today in the Philly suburbs, it's time to go back to work. But first, a weekend of watching a few movies and tonight's Mad Men season premiere:

• Great season premiere, because every episode is great. They go to Baltimore, stay at the Belvedere, and eat at Hausner's? Awesome. Killer reference for us Baltimorons, though creator Matt Weiner is from Pikesville. The scene with the fire alarm and Don's discovery of Sal was fantastic and it looks like, between that and Betty's lesbian joke at the beginning, homophobia is going to potentially be a big issue this season.
• If you're a fan of movies like Aliens, you really should go see District 9. I hesitate to really give the plot away because it's so well-hidden by the previews, but the basic premise is that a ship full of aliens came to rest over Johannesburg twenty years ago and its inhabitants have been put into a camp (District 9) to keep them separate from the human population. After building a new home farther from the city, a team of government contractors led by a middle-management bureaucrat goes in to District 9 to evict its residents. And then something goes horribly wrong. Or sort of, you'll have to see, and you should see. I think The Hangover is still my favorite movie of the year, but District 9 is going to be lauded for years to come in the sci-fi genre. It is non-stop from start to finish; very intense, but not scary at all. Very, very strong movie.
• Not The Goods though. What happens when someone takes a plot that's been beat to death (small business is threatened by big business, small business calls in an unorthodox mercenary, unorthodox mercenary had a bad thing in his past that haunts him) and then tries way too hard to be funny? You get a few light laughs and a lot of "what the hell were they thinking?" moments. It's not Anchorman, it's not Talladega Nights, it's not even Step Brothers. It's more Blades of Glory. I hated Blades of Glory.