What I Watched Instead.

Checked out Two Lovers starring Joaquin Phoenix and Gwyneth Paltrow.

There were no blue "muscles" to look at, and for that, I'm grateful for that alone that I opted for Two Lovers (the only nudity involved a brief shot of Paltrow's left breast).

Shots at that other movie aside, I enjoyed Two Lovers acting performances, especially by Joaquin Phoenix. It's not a totally depressing film, for the most part staying away from easy melodrama where lesser movies would have inserted it.

It's not the best film of 2009 (correction: it was actually released last year) that I've seen so far (I'd give that to Coraline) but I'd personally recommend it.

Other stuff I watched last week:

A Powerful Noise is an excellent documentary. Unfortunately there were only about a handful of us in the theater, and it was a one-time only showing in Stockton (and most likely in your city as well). If you can get a chance to see it though, I highly encourage you to do so.

I also caught the gruesome horror flick, The Descent, on On Demand. It was pretty fun to watch, but the ending left me a little ambivalent. Word is that there is a different (and maybe better) ending for the UK version. There's a sequel supposedly coming out based on the US version though. I'm kind of interested nonetheless.

On television, I caught the first week of Jimmy Fallon taking over for Conan O'Brien in the Late Nite slot, primarily to see how The Roots did as his band. They did a good job, and I'm glad that all of the band members are involved, including Black Thought, who did some singing here and there. The band also played with Ludacris for his performance, which was easily my favorite one out of the week.

As far as the rest of the show is concerned, it's not too bad. It's the first week, so I'm expecting it to get better over time as Fallon relaxes more into the role. He's definitely not as funny as Conan, nor do I expect him to be, but with tighter writing, I can see more special moments from the show accumulating over time. And using "the best band in late night" (in Fallon's own words at the end of each show) whenever possible wouldn't hurt.