Laura and I watched Dreamcatcher over the weekend. I’ve gotta hand it to Stephen King: he’s definitely imaginative. It was one of the most interesting and unique takes on the whole “alien invasion” theme I’ve seen. One might be tempted to compare the plot to that of It, but despite some similarities in the way the story is told, I don’t think that would be fair. The characters do feel like they’re re-releases of those we’ve encountered before, though.

Thursday night we went to see The Bourne Supremacy. It passed the Keep Laura Awake Test (or KLAT, I guess), and I thought it was a good flick. I enjoy characters who are able to (believably) keep one or more steps ahead of their adversaries and can think on their feet and improvise in almost any situation. Jason Bourne is this type of character, and the movie does a good job of keeping his skills within the realm of the possible. He’s not James Bond, he’s better than Bond because he feels real. I don’t recall any point where my disbelief was unsuspended, and that’s good.

I watched Ultimate Film Fanatic on IFC Friday night. Six contestants were vying for the title in the mid-Atlantic region. As each hopeful is introduced, they tell the audience why they’re going to win. My favorite was the kid who said, “I own over 1,000 movies in their correct aspect ratios… and I’m only 21.” It wasn’t my favorite when he said it, but it became my favorite when he was eliminated on the first question of the first round. The category was “Deniro: The Sellout Years.” The question was something along the lines of, “Deniro played Fearless Leader in the 2001 film that pitted him against this cartoon duo.” The kid clearly didn’t know, so after a pause he just said something about not watching bad movies, so he wouldn’t have seen the one in question.

You have to watch bad movies, kid. It’s part of being a movie geek. It’s part of how you discover what makes great movies great and what makes the turkeys gobble. If you avoid the bad movies simply because everyone says they’re bad, you’re not a movie geek, you’re a sheep without the experience and information necessary to form your own opinions. Over time, the number of bad movies you’ve seen will far outnumber the great ones. It has to be that way, else the great ones won’t be great. They’ll just be average.