I saw Moneyball, The Ides of March, and In Time in the past 2 days.
I hated Ides of March even though it had some good acting scenes, it was like ridiculously squandered talent all over the place. They tried to pull a Soprano's style ending, and were just trying to be too cute throughout the whole movie it was off-putting. The movie just struck me as wholly unnecessary. The story didn't really go anywhere, it was hardly a movie at all. I get the whole "internal struggle" thing, but it was really more just Ryan Gossling taking it up the ass and looking like a deer in headlights half the time. I love most of the actors in the movie, so I felt tricked into thinking it was a good movie for a little bit.
Moneyball was a solid movie. It was good but kinda forgettable? I think as a movie it was more cliched than Ides of March, but it deserves to exist at least, so that passes some sort of threshold I guess. The part I didn't get about it was why didn't Jonah Hill's character have more impact on the Cleveland Indians if he was able to stop a trade by simply whispering into someone's ear. If he was allowed to be in the GM's room, you'd think he wouldn't have to go hurry out into the parking garage to talk to Brad Pitt's character about this radical new theory about baseball.
I thought In Time was really good, stylistic, futuresque, and within it's own world it all makes sense. I appreciated the fact they didn't go into a huge explanation of exactly who implemented the whole Body Clock thing and exactly how it was all put into place. They just sort of presented their world to you, and you take it or leave it, and then let the story play out within these parameters. It reminded me of V for Vendetta but with better looking people all around, gotta love that. I assumed I would hate it and write it off as cheesy, but it really appealed to me. I wasn't expecting a Bonnie and Clyde meets Robin Hood angle, it was fresh and entertaining IMO.