If you don't mind watch subtitled films, and have a fairly strong stomach, “Oldboy” is a Korean movie about Oh Dae-su, who's after revenge for being imprisoned in a room for fifteen years and being framed for the murder of his wife. After his release, his erstwhile kidnapper offers him a deal: if he can work out why he was imprisoned, the kidnapper will commit suicide; if he can't the kidnapper will kill Mido, the young woman who's been helping him. And he only has five days to find the truth.

I'm going to warn you now, there's a scene with someone's teeth being levered out with a claw hammer and one character doesn't keep his tongue all the way through. Plus someone eats a live octopus... The actual plot is a teensy-weensy bit implausible, but otherwise it's a very good film. Just opened in the US I believe, though currently available on DVD here in the UK.

I've been ill today and off work. So I spent most of the day under a duvet on the sofa watching movies:

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I finished watching the season one DVD collection of “24” this afternoon, or, as I like to call it, “18” since each episode is only 40 minutes long (see over at Terra Nova for some of their thoughts on what the 20 minutes of ads is doing to the viewing figures). I can see why the show did so well... each episode really kept me wanting to watch the next. I watched the first two eps a couple of nights after the DVD arrived, then fourteen episodes in one go last weekend. I finished up the rest today after the Malaysian Grand Prix was over today.

There's some flaws in the thing, such as people “disappearing” from the story as if they were booked for a couple of episodes only (such as Mandy the lesbian über-terrorist) and sometimes the plot felt slowed or speeded in order to fit it into 24 hours exactly. And I think the casting of Victor Drazen was a bit of a mistake (even if it was a nod to Flashback) since it kind of spoiled the reveal of the prisoner (“OMG... they caught Dennis Hopper!!!” but I liked it enough to spring for the two subsequent DVD collections on Amazon.

I figured the well ran dry for Star Trek some while back, but it seems Paramount thinks they can squeeze more money from the name by, essentially, getting any old SF story and slapping Star Trek on it...

Erik Jendresen: “When they first approached me, I wasn't really interested. But they said, 'What if we could approach this as a blank slate, and here's a notion.'”

Jendresen Talks "Star Trek XI" (March 10th, 2005) - Dark Horizons