All with **SPOILERS**
The Book of Eli
I like ruins, so was a sucker for this movie. I loved the Postman and Waterworld too, which often get panned.
The religious back-story to his search made me think of Jon Shannow, the Jerusalem man, one of David Gemmell`s best characters. Both believe they are on a mission from God, gunslinging their way round a post-apocalypse world. One scene in particular echoes Shannow strongly- where Denzel kills a bad guy by sinking his machete into the man`s femoral artery, the one in the groin. Shannow does the same thing to a boy who is gutshot and in great pain, as a mercy.
The ending reminds me of Fahrenheit 451. Of course the blindness reminds me of Zatoichi.
Moon
Dark. I felt completely at home with it, and the material. I loved the deterioration of the older Sam, loved the un-Hal-ness of the robot voice.
One odd thing- his daughter was only a teenager, but there seemed to have been more than a few Sam`s before him. The timeline didn`t quite seem to work out. Also, if you can send a retrieval squad, is it really that much cheaper to awaken extra Sam`s instead of just sending dudes up there periodically?
Loved the giant space hoppers.
Unthinkable
It`s strange how quickly the torture in this movie starts to seem acceptable. When you up the stakes far enough, things change. Sheen spends a lot of time screaming in the background, while we`re watching people in the observation area chatting on their cell phones, pouring coffee. When Sam Jackson ups the violence level, we get shocked. Then we`re back to accepting it.
That`s the takeaway of the movie, really. How simple it is to be desensitized.
Collapse
Peak oil. This movie has the same title as a book by Jared Diamond, he of `Guns Germs and Steel` fame. Diamond`s book is about ancient civilizations, but the message is the same. Populations expand as new resources are found, then collapse when they are used up.
Why would we be any different? If you believe Ruppert (the interviewee), we`re standing on the edge of the other side of the bell curve right now, all of us hoping green energy or nuclear is going to take off.