Three movie reviews

I will list them chronologically, which will also order them in ascending positive review points:

* High School Musical 3: Yes, if you didn't know it before, you know it now, I am the father of a tween girl. There was more entertainment value listening to the reactions of all the tween girls in the audience during key scenes: when Troy and Gabriella almost kiss, when Troy takes off his shirt, when Troy and Gabriella almost kiss again, when Troy and Gabriella finally do kiss already. The movie itself? Production values are way higher than previous iterations, but the songs were less memorable. A few good dance routines (the opening game, Sharpay and Ryan's big Broadway number), but other than that, as the tweens would say, whatevs.

* Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure: Wanted to watch something with the kids, I wanted to order it in high-def over my Xbox 360, so Bill & Ted it was. The kids enjoyed it, and it's a guilty pleasure to watch. The effects are pretty lame when you see it 20 years down the road. Personally, Jane Wiedlin was always my favorite Go-Go's member, so it's always fun seeing her as Joan of Arc. And the time travel conundrums were a good lead-in to...

* Primer: OK, I know I'm late to the party on this one... it apparently won a Sundance festival prize in 2004, so it's been out there for four years. I think I saw it mentioned on a list of movies that cost virtually nothing to make (this cost $7K), and it reminded me to add it to the Netflix queue. As implied in the paragraph above, it's a time travel movie. I really liked it--there was very believable techie dialog at the beginning, they did a great job of shooting on (I assume) digital video to make it look like film (edit: nope, shot on Super16!), and it really made you concentrate on what was going on towards the end. Oh, and it's short at 74 minutes, so practically a single treadmill session! I'm still not sure I followed it all that well, but better that than being spoon-fed like in most films. (That whole "golden compass" thing in The Golden Compass still rankles.) So if you've never seen this film, go watch it. I think you can even watch it for free in its entirety on (what's left of) Google Video--here is the link--or you can watch it streaming from Netflix if you are so equipped.