A couple of new-ish movies:
Skyline promised a different take on the ol' alien invasion plot. Turns out it's basically just a retread of
Independence Day told from the perspective of
Cloverfield (without the shaky handcam, but with even more annoying characters). Some interesting alien designs, but apart from that, dull dull dull.
The Way Back isn't bad at all. Loosely based on a kind-of-possibly-alleged true story, it's about a bunch of Gulag prisoners who escape on foot and end up walking all the way to India. Peter Weir gives good man-vs-nature and most of the actors (oh look, yet another Skarsgård building an international career for himself) do excellent work... Colin Farell probably somewhat less so. Sure, you figure out how it's going to play out, but the scenery porn and the hope at the heart of all the despair really works, at least for the two hours the movie lasts.
Rubber was just as much fun as I thought it would be. Someone described it as
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre directed by David Lynch, and while it's not quite that, it's in the ballpark. Out in the desert, an old tire suddenly comes alive (for absolutely no reason, as the prologue tells us) and starts murdering people. The police are sent in to stop it. Meanwhile, on a hill a mile away, a bunch of people have bought tickets to an outside viewing of a movie about an old tire that comes alive and starts murdering people... Part horror comedy, part sarcastic commentary on the movie industry's pandering to the audience, all fun.
