** Lost, Season 2
*** District 9
*** Der Baader Meinhof Komplex

I enjoyed the first season of Lost pretty well, even while aware that it was a fairly silly and manipulative soap opera. Parts of season were still good, but I started to get tired of it, especially the way the characters just kept acting unrealistically stupid (let’s get the guns and run into the jungle again! let’s have the only doctor constantly put his own life at risk without ever training anyone else in basic first aid!). What kept me watching in the first season was the promise of having an interesting and mysterious world gradually pieced together bit by bit, but it started to become clear in the second season that a lot of things were just made up as they went along and that many questions would never be answered. And so I decided to stop there. Then, to satisfy my curiosity, I skimmed through the episode descriptions for season 3 and figured I’d made the right call — it seemed chock full of yet more new mysteries, full of pointless running into the jungle with guns, and not at all full of answers for anything. Having since dipped into the rest of the story and actually watched the series finale with friends — I don’t really feel like I missed anything, and after a few days of speculation I’ve almost completely forgotten about the show already.

District 9 was pretty great. I had no real idea where they were going to take the story, beyond knowing the basic premise, and it just went some really interesting places. Also, I liked the progression Wikus’s character follows from clueless asshole to interesting guy. Lots of good little details too.

Baader meinhof was interesting and compelling to watch, and the first half or so especially gave a great look at what the mood was like at that time in Germany. But as it goes more into the breakdown of the group and their time in prison, the new unexplained members of the group multiply, it is hard to follow what they are all doing or who relates to what, and some of it just gets annoying and dull. Overall a good movie, but I think it tried to cover too much and perhaps needed to focus a little more. Sure, history doesn’t make neat stories, but it’s good to pick and choose what you want to tell.