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Despite announcing his retirement from acting some years back after appearing in "Gran Torino", Clint Eastwood is at it again. This time around he plays Gus, an aging baseball scout for the Atlanta Braves who is concealing the fact that he is starting to lose his eyesight. Nonetheless he gets himself assigned to select their first-draft pick before (perhaps) being shunted into retirement by a younger generation who trust computers more than experience, knowledge, and intuition. Knowing that Gus is in trouble, his best friend (John Goodman) persuades his estranged daughter Mickey (Amy Adams) to go on the road with him to North Carolina to help out. Mickey is a fanatic about baseball because it was her only way to connect with him during her childhood when he seemingly all but abandoned her after her mother died. The film then depicts how Gus and Mickey awkwardly try to rebuild what looks like an irreparably broken relationship.

The plot has enough twists and turns to hold the viewer's attention and subtly highlights the central theme of how rewarding, complex, and difficult real human relationships can be. All the principals are in top form, including Justin Timberlake as a former draft of Gus' who is shooting for a job as a sports announcer, but Amy Adams is especially good- she delivers a perfectly tuned and moving performance. The strong supporting cast are excellent also.

All in all this is a gently funny, unpretentious, and well-acted human drama with a big beautiful heart.

Daniel Craig's third outing as 007 takes the 50 year-old franchise in a new direction but makes some significant sacrifices along the way. In this outing, Mr Bond has to retrieve a hard drive listing the cover of every MI6 agent on active service. Things get off to a great start with a fabulous chase scene over the rooftops of Istanbul. The film maintains a great pace through plot segments in London, Shanghai, and Macau also. However the final hour-or-so, though suspenseful, feels grim and anticlimactic. Bond's age and vulnerability are perhaps over-emphasized, and the silliness factor is significantly reduced. Overall, this is a good film and a more mature, world-weary spin on the James Bond character. Unfortunately, it's just not quite as much fun. Worth seeing all the same though.

At first glance this film appears to look at the question of what happens after death. However in actuality it is an examination of how people handle life and the emotional dilemmas that are unavoidable in human relationships. There are three separate plot lines that illustrate differing aspects of the human experience- Matt Damon portrays a medium who feels his gift cuts him off from others, a French TV journalist has her worldview shaken to it's foundations by a near-death experience in a tsunami, and a young boy in London has to deal with having a drug- addicted mother and also with the death of his twin brother. "Hereafter" skilfully depicts how each of these three characters is in fact attempting to discover how to most fully live life even though they cannot look away from the immutable certainty of death.

This is a cerebral, reflective, and at times almost somber piece of cinema. All the cast members give excellent, if low-key, performances and Clint Eastwood's direction is assured and restrained. All in all, this is an outstanding existential drama that celebrates our need for others via an unflinching look at how those we care about the most are taken away from us.