We’ve watched several good movies on dvd recently – Sunshine, 3:10 to Yuma, and Hard Candy. I don’t think I’ll be posting full reviews about any of them, but I recommend them all.

Sunshine is a really intense and thoughtful space thriller that pays tribute to many of the other space movies that came before. The premise involves a ship and crew on a mission to explode a giant bomb in the sun before it dies out. Essentially they want to jumpstart the sun, but before they can achieve their mission they receive a distress call from the previous ship that was sent on the same mission and has been presumed lost; mishaps, madness, and tragedy follow. There are tributes to 2001: A Space Odyssey, Alien, Solaris and many other sci-fi movies and tv shows from over the years.

3:10 to Yuma was a terrifically enjoyable western with great performances from Christian Bale, Russell Crowe, and a breakout performance by Ben Foster. It was fun to see Russell Crowe seem to enjoy himself. So many of his recent roles have been the intense, brooding type. In this film, even though he plays the bad man, he has a sense of humor. Marcella and I both really enjoyed this one.

Hard Candy was actually a re-watch for me, but Marcella hadn’t seen it. I was curious for Marcella to see it because Ellen Page has been so much in the press recently for her performance in Juno. But Hard Candy is the movie where I first became aware of her, and her performance in it was fierce and riveting. This isn’t a movie for everyone; it deals with issues of pedophilia, torture, suicide and murder. The plot revolves around a seemingly 14 year old girl meeting an older man who discovered her on the internet; it’s essentially a re-working of little red riding hood where little red is actually hunting the big bad wolf. This movie is a very intense two person psychological conflict that will keep you guessing, and make you squirm.