10 Cloverfield Lane - ★★★★★
This was a delight. It's like a free movie - no months and years of the internet dissecting everything before release, and a budget low enough that it's basically free to the studio too. And then it's good! A huge score, puzzles for the characters and for the audience, a winning cast, and one of those nice tight scripts that uses everything.
Living in Oblivion - ★★★☆☆
Maybe not the right choice to watch this on my day off from a film shoot; it's too real. Made me chuckle that so little has changed in 20 years, right down to the lingo.
Zootopia - ★★½☆☆
I hope it's the same person on every one of these movies that pipes up with "hey, I know! We can show a whole city! You know, it'll be just like a real city, except with all these specifics about [movie topic]! In fact, I'll go get started on some sweeping city shots while you guys figure out the story for the next three years."
I had some little complaints, but they can mostly be swept under the rug by remembering it's a kids' movie. Still, too many callbacks.
Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice - ★★★½☆
I was nervous about this one, but you know what? It was fine. I gave Age of Ultron more stars at the jump because I was feeling more invested in those characters at the time, but with a little distance I'd say BvS is about as good.
Both have some exciting stuff and some stuff you wish they'd cut and some confusing stuff that's supposed to make sense on the rewatch that you do five years from now after a bunch of other movies get made.
This is probably the best on-screen depiction of Batman in action, and thank heavens, it's skillful, experienced, professional Batman instead of Year One. Obviously everybody's rumbling about the idea of Batman with a gun. Batman would never kill? Is there a Batman movie where he doesn't kill? Isn't whether or not Batman would take a life the central arc of his character in the previously-best Batman movie, The Dark Knight? (A struggle against which he loses, by the by.) I think the Batman we see here, maybe he might not kill again, maybe he's pulled up from a wretched place by these events, remembering he's not alone out there.
I also liked how Lex is actually a supervillain this time around. No complicated real estate swindle, just a maniac going about his maniacal goals. It's weird how popular opinion seems to default to thinking filmmakers make mistakes more often than unconventional choices. (To wit: Man From U.N.C.L.E. shows us that Henry Cavill is perfectly capable of charm and humor. It's almost as though the movie were making some kind of point by showing the alien character as removed from humanity in some way...)
I like this movie more than anyone I know, but it did engage my editorial sense to want to cut out a good 10-15 minutes, and maybe put a few scenes back into the correct order.