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I too went to see Crash and expecting to be innundated with all the typical racial agendas. However, I think it is one of the best movies in some time. In one scene you have a racist cop, then a few scenes later , that same cop is risking his life to save a african american. It really worked on so many levels. I think you have to see it several times and really think about it, to really get it. Also, I love the movies that are not sequential (Pulp fiction, Kill Bill, Crash, Momento, etc). Crash is a really really good movie. And a superb cast. I thought several of them should have been nominated for individual awards (Don Cheatle, Terrence Howard).

After Crash, I liked Cinderella Man, and Walk the Line for 2005. Red Eye was a pretty good action flick. Hostel was pretty good for a scary/gore flick. Star Wars was a let down, even though it filled in some of the blanks. Munich bored me to tears and ended badly. Jarhead was horrible, even though I like Jake G (haven't seen brokeback mtn) Flightplan with Jodie was better than I expected. History of Violence was pretty good. 40 year virgin sucked. I really liked Lord of War with Nicholas Cage. Four Brothers was pretty good. Other suck movies of 2005 that I saw : Fantastic Four, Sky High, Stealth, War of the Worlds, The Island, Mr/Mrs Smith, Dukes, LOngest Yard, House of Wax, Kingdom of heaven . Danny the dog, was a dog of a movie. Batman Begins was pretty good for the 1st 2/3rds of the Movie. Herbie was decent.

For 2004, I liked Cellular and Collateral. Collateral is the best Tom Cruise movie in some time. He did a good acting job in Last Samuri, but I thought that movie was just OK. Jamie Fox should have gotten an oscar for Collateral also.

My kids are at the movie going age, so we see a lot each year as part of our family activities. So I probably see 30 or so new movies in theaters every year. The last 2 years, have been pretty bad overall for movies. And it is not just the movies pushing some kind of agenda. It's just that everyone is a rehash or a remake. Very few new ideas. So that is why we are getting remakes of almost every superhero movie, and 20 year old TV show. I saw Eight Below last weekend. Probably the best family movie I have seen in years. It tugged on my heart a lot more than March of the Penguins. We need some more feel good movies. We've seen them before, but a good story and acting can work again and again.

Hollywood doesn't look much better for 2006.

I'm fixing to put Crash and Walk the Line on our Netflix list. We enjoy watching movies with our kids, and it's easier now that both are over 16, though we still don't let them watch the over sex-saturated ones. They don't seem to like them, anyway.

Of the ones you mentioned, we've seen Cinderella Man, which was just wonderful, and Flightplan which was pretty good, too. We liked War of the Worlds, and absolutely LOVED Batman Begins, which our #1 son gave me for Christmas. We also enjoyed Ocean's Twelve a lot. We all loved The Island; it was a very life affirming movie. We've seen previews for March of the Penguins and Eight Below, but haven't seen them yet. We also enjoyed Collateral quite a bit; Jamie Foxx was terrific in that one.