australia - one of those movies i watched because my wife wanted to, but ended up liking it a lot (perhaps a recurring theme on the thread?)... i thought the positives definitely outweighed the negatives on this one... i like how the aboriginines played a prominent role... not just their speech, but seemingly their ethos & life view is very poetic... that opinion not just derived from this movie

, but it was a reminder...
body of lies - not terrible... i guess i had higher expectations based on director & cast... some of the characterizations & dialogue (which i take it was based on a novel) seemed a bit overly facile, & cardboard cutout... giving credit where it is due, there were some twists that kept me guessing...
pinnochio - i think i saw this when i was a kid, but some may never have seen it (OOP for a while)... pretty much forgot everything aside from the nose-growing scene, so it was like watching it for first time... it is a great family movie, but i think adults could appreciate it that are interested in animation... one critic talked about how disney's best work had a coloring, & use of light & shadow that was "rembrandt-like"... i would put pinnochio at the apex of that period... imo, the first animated movies they did (snow white, pinnochio & fantasia... & to a lesser extent, bambi & dumbo) are the best things they ever did... disney, a notorious & legendary detail-oriented perfectionist, never again really had as much time or the inclination to carry out his brand of quality control to such obssessive levels (the palpable & tangible results which are literally evident & manifest in each shot... while a cliche, it is no less true in this instance, almost each frame is a work of art & a masterpiece)... the WW II years intervened, later the theme park & TV show preoccupied him, live action & nature documentary divisions, & towards the end of his life, his vision of the epcot city of the future...
pinnochio may well be the summitt of even the above group, & imo, IS the best of the best... not just the animation was masterful (it is), but almost everything about it... the way the story was adapted from the italian children's serial, the narrative, voice casting, the songs, the score, effects, pacing, etc...
bears repeat viewings well... needless to say, very highly recommended...
it just came out on blu-ray (studios second offering on the hi-def format, after sleeping beauty last oct)... coincidentally, snow white is next title due, in oct, & fantasia in march of 2010... along with a highly anticipated short collaboration of disney & dali called destino (plus a feature length doc on the disney that never was... i think abandoned projects like destino... this sounds intriguing, as there was probably some stuff they DIDN'T do that was as interesting or more so than what they did)...
BTW, the blu-ray comes with a standard DVD, potentially a good option for those who don't have a blu-ray player yet but think they might take the plunge in the near future... also, it comes with a nice making of documentary, not quite feature length in itself, but nearly an hour...
* to me, it is astounding how far the disney studio went in a mere decade or so... some of their first popular shorts from the early to mid-30s, are still watchable & have their charm (the sight gags were endlessly inventive, very funny & hold up), but the animation itself was primitive compared with what was soon to follow... the transformation to the state of the art just a few short years later (i think pinnochio was made in early 40s?) is staggering & mind boggling...