Serenity

I am not sick and do have a life other than watching movies.  It takes me about 3 days to finish a film, but Serenity was one I could not stop.  Get it and watch it.  It is a newer version of Star Wars with better effects (due to today's better technology), better dialogue and it also has a bit of Aliens mixed in for fun and carnage.  In a nutshell, a group of smugglers with a knarly little space ship take a brother and sister combo on board.  The only issue is that the sister is one wild freak of a girl who is wanted and wanted desperately by the Alliance- aka Empire.  She has some crazy powers and though she serves as a magnet for all the terrible crap that happens to the ship and everyone they work with, it is her crazy powers that eventually save the day.

Okay, on the surface, great, another shoot 'em up, outer space movie adventure, but no!  The actors, the acting, and the dialogue were great.  It was funny and serious at the same time.  Walking vessels of testosterone in the form of the captain and his first officer are played really well by Nathan Fillion (who I can't recall seeing in anything) and Adam Baldwin.  Their exchanges and quips are great.  I was stoked to see Adam Baldwin in this film do really well.  In 1979, Baldwin was in a film called My Bodygaurd (which happened to be one of Matt Dillon's first films) and he was great; good character protrayal.  However, in anything after that, eg. Independence Day, he had bit parts and was not really convincing as anything.  Here, though, he did well.  Another really cool character was Chiwetel Ejiofor (Endgame, Salt, etc.).  This guy is beginning to rack up some serious roles and he does them well as the kind of dude who could keep a straight face, quote Shakespeare, and look you in the eye as he calmly drives a Samurai sword into your chest: awesome evil dude.  The women in the film were great.  I am so sick of girls in films who (have a gun within arm's reach but) sit there and scream, cry, and remain immobile as their heroes get their butts kicked by the bad guys who are no more than 10 feet away.  Not here, these women are still women but they get down to business without over MANing their roles.  Awesome.  The film's plot is a bit vague but the script, cinematography, and directing make up for it.  The acting is awesome.  The only drawback would be the sound.  On some occasions, the dialogue was a bit tough to hear.