All sorts of senseless violence. Cool.

The Rundown: 2 Stars. Not too impressed with this The Rock/Seann William Scott action comedy. Frankly, both of them need to start picking better scripts or they'll end up on the straight-to-video scrapheap before long. Ewen Bremner's (of Trainspotting fame) role completely befuddled me. Rosario Dawson, however, was a lovely as ever.

Kill Bill, Vol. 1: ?.? Stars. Wow. From the opening quote (which got the biggest laughs of the entire film), I knew this wasn't going to be like any film I'd seen before, and it wasn't. Mostly a hyperviolent kung-fu flick, director Quentin Tarantino weaves his own version of the genre. I'm not going to give this film a rating until I've seen all of it, but it was certainly a promising opening. It was nice to see kung fu legend Sonny Chiba given a decently dramatic role (in which he performs admirably). Frankly, everyone else was great too. I've got nothing whatsoever negative to say about this flick, except that I wish I'd seen both parts.

Man, I'm getting pretty lame at this

Out of Time: 2.5 Stars. Fairly unsuspenseful suspense film. Skip it and wait for the DVD with the 16 alternate endings.

American Splendor: 3.25 Stars. Really interesting character study of a truly unlikable fellow, yet a singular talent. Paul Giamatti and Hope Davis are both excellent, as is the gimmick-laden direction and cinematography. The only complaint I have is that the film doesn't really allow you to care for the protagonist, Harvey Pekar (Giamatti), till about 15 minutes before the end. It's a bit late by then.

Matchstick Men: 3.5 Stars. I enjoyed this one alot. Great performances, great story (if a bit of a stretch, and a whole lot of cigarettes. Ridley Scott can't live without smoke everywhere, can't he?