I join Daniel McCarthy in recommending The Good Shepard. LRC readers will particularly enjoy how Skull and Bones is portrayed as the breeding ground for the CIA and the scene where the Soviet defector tells his interrogators that they can never admit the Soviets are a paper tiger without also admitting that there is no need for a CIA.

I also join Max Raskin in recommending The Pursuit of Happyness. What a treat to see a movie where the good guys are stockbrokers and the villains are the IRS and the San Francisco police. Even when the hero has to go to a homeless shelter, he goes to a private shelter run by the Methodist church.

I was surprised at how much I liked Rocky Balboa. The first part of the film drags, and spends to much time on a relationship between Rocky and a minor character from the first film. However, once Rocky decides to fight again the film takes off. LRC readers will particularly like the science where Rocky tells off the Pennsylvania Boxing Commission for blocking his pursuit of happiness by denying him a boxing license. Stallone recreates many of the great movements from the first film (including the run up the library stairs) yet the movie never feels like a rehash of old material. Stallone does more than recreate iconic images, he recaptures the spiritual core of the first film. A fitting farewell to one of the greatest characters in movie history.