Happy Monday, everyone! I’m actually still enjoying another day off today 😀 Well, staying in for the holiday break has quite a bit of perks. Besides not having to deal with holiday traffic, I also got to enjoy more movies than I usually around to in a typical weekend. I like mixing up genres when I watch movies, so after watching The Last of the Mohicans on Wednesday night, my hubby and I were planning on seeing Tangled with another friend after a hearty Thanksgiving lunch. We had bought tickets for the Disney flick but at the last minute we decided to see Social Network instead which was playing five minutes after.

Not sure what took me so long, but I’m certainly glad I finally got to see The Last of the Mohicans. As I had just seen Master & Commander just a couple of weeks ago, I kind of saw some similarities not only because both are period films taking place roughly around the same time (only about 50 years apart), but they both have strong leading men who carry the movie on their buff shoulders.

Daniel Day-Lewis is nothing short of electrifying as Hawkeye, an adopted son of a dying tribe called the Mohicans. Set during the French and Indian war in 18th century colonial America, it’s got a wonderful mix of action/adventure and unabashed romance at the heart of the story. It’s probably going to be on my top five Michael Mann films (though not having seen Collateral and Ali yet I probably should wait until I do).

Well, I’m probably the last person to see Social Network. I wasn’t too interested in it as I’m not a regular Facebook user but was intrigued by all the hype and stellar reviews (97% on RottenTomatoes, wow!). It’s hard to keep expectation in check with that kind of buzz but luckily, the film delivered. It truly captured the spirit of our generation and a fascinating look at the rise of the social media phenomenon.

You don’t need to do a ton of research to know the movie took much liberty with the story of FB founder Mark Zuckerberg, which makes Social Network more fascinating than a standard biopic because the subject of the story wasn’t even involved in the making of the film. But I was mostly curious to see the movie as an art form as I really don’t even care much about the subject matter to begin with, and in that regard, David Fincher did an amazing job. The film kept my attention the whole time, it was taut and gripping, more so than a lot of stuff out there billed as a ‘thriller.’ Performances were great all around, particularly Jesse Eisenberg as Zuckerberg and Andrew Garfield as his BFF Eduardo Saverin. I’ve noticed Garfield in Red Riding trilogy and Never Let Me Go and was really impressed by his screen presence. I think the 27-year-old Brit’s got a nice blend of leading man quality with character actor sensibility, not a bad thing to have for any actor. Justin Timberlake also turned in a compelling and humorous performance as the Napster founder Sean Parker.

This weekend I also re-watched How To Train Your Dragon that we bought on Black Friday and loved it even more the second time around. So yeah, it was definitely worth every penny! And last night I finally got to see Part I of the Pillars of the Earth 8-part miniseries. I like it so far, but then again I’m always fond of movies with lots of Brits in ’em… and it doesn’t hurt that Rufus Sewell is involved 🙂 I’ll post my review once I’m done with the whole thing.

Oh, I also want to share that I’ve got a french crime thriller Le Samouraï scheduled to arrive tomorrow that I’m quite excited about. I’ve always wanted to see an Alain Delon movie (who was one of my late mother’s favorite actors) but haven’t got around to it for some reason. Thanks for This Guy Over Here‘s list, I finally added it to my queue.

So, what movie(s) did you manage to see this past weekend?