Wait ... there are actually movies I want to see?

The wife and I, along with my sisters-in-law and one of their dudes, all went to see the new Harry Potter flick yesterday and something absolutely shocking happened (outside of watching Ginny Weasley bend down in front of Harry Potter to tie his shoe in a manner that not-so-subtly hinted at a knob-job): I enjoyed watching the trailers and saw a good handful of movies that looked worth spending $10 a ticket on.

The first one that caught my eye was 9, a new CGI/stop-motion animation movie produced by Tim Burton that appears to be about a

scientist who, as the world is about to enter into some kind of apocalyptic war, creates these potato-sack-looking creatures and gives them life. He then hides them away from each other. Some time later, they find each other again and have to band together to fight off these machines that have taken over the world. Outside of the done-to-death idea of machines taking earth in a grim future, the film looked like it sported a lot of interesting imagery and a fairy talesque feel, much like Burton's other forays into animation, The Nightmare Before Christmas and The Corpse Bride. It looked like a promising dark fantasy that's a bit different (i.e. better) than watching a Tracy Morgan-voiced guinea pig that's a spy.

Next up was a Guy Ritchie-directed Sherlock Holmes, starring Robert Downey, Jr. as the titular detective and Jude Law as Watson. Strange that I had never heard of this one before, since it has some big stars and a pretty big director, but it looked well-made and interesting, and low on computer-generated crapitude. There were, however, a few out-of-place Matrix-ish slow-mo fight scenes that gave it a sort of hipper-than-thou feel, but I won't judge it too harshly for that. The only thing the movie felt like it was missing was Jason Statham, trying as hard as he could to find some Victorian-era way to keep his adrenaline pumping (or his heart charged) so he wouldn't die.

Finally, we saw a trailer for the movie adaptation of everyone's favorite children's book, Where the Wild Things Are. Watching the trailer left me (and my wife, who was nearly crying like a bitch) filled with a sense of wonderment in the same way the first glimpses of the Lord of the Rings movies did. The imagery looked straight out of the book, and the wild things were created using mainly suits and animatronics; I could detect very little CGI -- which I was ecstatic about (I sense a trend ...). It was a little strange when I saw it was directed by Spike Jonze, but I guess who else could pull off the surrealism of a children's story better than the man behind Being John Malkovich and Adaptation? (Charlie Kaufman did not provide the screenplay, however.)

All in all, it looks like moviegoers will have some fine feasts ahead for the remainder of 2009. For a cynic like myself, it was refreshing to see some hint of creativity still clings to life in Hollywood.