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I went on a movie binge during the past week: Lost in Translation, Hellboy and Lost in La Mancha.

Lost in Translation was good, but different from what I was expecting. It was much slower paced and turned out to be less plot driven and more of a character study (well, two characters). Bill Murray does a terrific job as the lonely, tired actor who is trying to keep working. And Scarlett Johansson does an equally good job in her parallel role of lonely wife stranded in Japan. If you find yourself alone and in a quiet mood, this is a fitting movie.

Hellboy was just plain old fun. Movie execs pay attention — this is how you turn a comic book into a movie. They didn’t waste time trying to explain everything and all of the characters to you, they just got on with the plot. Ron Perlman is perfect in the title role. And the effects are just great. I love that they used models, sets and good make-up augmented by CGI. This is how it should be done. For a rollicking good time, go see this.

Lost in La Mancha is the movie about a movie that doesn’t exist. It is a documentary about Terry Gilliam’s attempt to film a version of Don Quixote. What began as a documentary on the pre-production process of a film turned into a chronicle of a film disaster. Everything that could go wrong did — from jets to flash floods to sick actors. In the end, Gilliam and crew only got 6 days of filming before everything fell apart. I found it very engaging. The bonus disk is just as entertaining as the main movie, mostly because all of it is really interviews and deleted scenes — after all, there isn’t a complete movie to talk about. If you like Gilliam and are interested in the film business, this is a must see.