When he first showed up, I did not like Leonardo DiCaprio, but the last two movies of his I have seen have been great (Body of Lies, The Departed), and the ones before that were OK as well; Blood Diamond, The Aviator, and Catch Me If You Can.
Agree with Bg1968, Eastern Promises was well done and The Bourne Ultimatum was quite good, and I think that the whole Bourne series has had an admirably produced edge to it, which makes the movies resonate the same way the original novels did.
The last time I wrote in this thread, I mentioned two movies with Daniel Craig and the fact that he had been named the new James Bond. A couple of months after that, I saw Casino Royale, which may be one of the more important movies of the last couple of years. Casino Royale has breathed new life into the series, and indeed the genre. It was an action-movie-lovers' action movie. Beyond action, it also has great style, is wonderfully escapist, but still maintains its cheesiness, the camp, the one-liners. This time though, it had an edge to it, and for the first time in a long time, the Bond character himself was interesting (now if only they could get the Bond girl to have some depth). I was worried I might misoverestimate (boy, in some ways I am going to miss Dubya) how good the new Bond movie is going to be, but my hopes have been dampened because of the name. "Quantum of Solange", on the other hand, would have been a humdinger, but Bond movies never bring back secondhand (or dead) Bond girls...
