Movies: Many. A regular mini-film festival over the weekend as I cleared out my NetFlix backlog.

1. Secret Window – Johnny Depp as a writer-on-the-edge with a nasty little secret that doesn’t smack you straight in the face like a dead fish. Stephen King’s hallmark is stamped all over this, but don’t let that keep you away.

2. 50 First Dates – I took this on vacation with me, but only ended up watching Mystic River while I was away. I fast forwarded through much of the second half, and didn’t feel as if I had missed anything. Adequate as a vehicle for Adam Sandler and Drew Barrymore and vaguely juvenile humor, but offered little more.

3. Lost in Translation – It’s a rare movie that I consciously decide to watch more than once, as opposed to running across on TV, or buying and keeping on the shelf. I first saw this in the theater when it came out last year and had forgotten many of the subtle touches and small details that Sophia Coppola introduces throughout the movie (“For relaxing times, make it Suntory time.”). The nuanced performances of both Bill Murray and Scarlett Johanson are amazing and reminded me why this is one of the best movies that I’ve seen in years.

4. Collateral – The previews set you up for a thriller/action movie, with Tom Cruise in a carefully controlled role as a hired killer. What they don’t prepare you for is that this is actually a character study, not of the hit man, but of the taxi driver played by Jamie Foxx. He is a man who has temporarily been driving a cab for the last 12 years and who channels dreams of a tropical island through a battered post card affixed to his car’s visor. His hospital-bound mother believes he owns a limousine business and that his aspirations have been realized. He believes that 12 years is merely a way station on the road to better things. His precisely ordered world (he can tell you, to the minute, how long it will take to drive between any two points in LA) is interrupted by Tom Cruise’s arrogant assumption that a few hundred dollars will buy his time, his cab and his life. The final chase sequence is perhaps necessary for audiences to feel a sense that they got the action movie they came to see, but does a disservice to the rest of the film. The story could have been resolved in a far quieter, but no less decisive, manner that would have better underscored the sense of destiny that was the heart of this story. And then there was Mark Ruffalo in a supporting role. He has joined Jake Gyllenhaal on my list of "I'll watch him balance his checkbook" actors. Although I don't think anything will top his role in In The Cut. Which I think I need to go rewatch. Right now.