[Charles Martel]

CGI has in many ways ruined Hollywood action movies as they tend to over rely on them. The story is not as important, it’s how much action can we pack into it. In the last few years, there were really only two movies (IMO) that I think were really good. That is “The Book Thief” and “The Grand Budapest Hotel”. They were good stories and the biggest actor in either of them is Ralph Fiennes who is not a top tier actor.

I've seen "The Book Thief" and agree that it's very good. I've not yet seen "The Grand Budapest Hotel", but I'll take a look soon. I thought "The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel" was fairly well done (and it had an excellent British cast). Just yesterday I saw "Chef" and couldn't help but notice that despite the lack of gratuitous sex and violence, excessive computerized graphics and so on, it was a pretty darned good movie. Too bad Tom Cruise's latest effort was playing right next door, with its intrusive thumping explosions.

Learned something else yesterday - there's a smartphone app that tells you what times during any given movies are best for bathroom breaks. Finally, all this technology pays off. :-/

[Old Teufel Hunden]

"I thought "The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel" was fairly well done"

I have not seen that but I believe it's on HBO right now. I'll have to take a look.