If you LOVED Avatar, chances are you'll hate The Ghost Writer

Roman Polanski's latest movie has no blue people, nothing explodes, the main character isn't a tough guy and the film isn't shot in 3-D. Ewan McGregor is the story's lead, the ghost writer. He doesn't punch anyone. There's no blood. And no fake-o political message either (big corporation - bad, trees - good).

Nope. Thus, The Ghost Writer is destined, like so many quality movies before it, to make very little money, to not pop up on the box office radar and to only impress the adult audiences that take the time to go out and see this old-school thriller.

While also asking some pretty potent political questions, The Ghost Writer is really a great work of suspense. Even the weather gets to you. And yet the movie harkens back to the Hollywood classics, Hitchcock-like, as it manages to mix foreboding with humor. Thrillers in my lifetime haven't usually had too many hardy hars and I forgot how effective a good laugh is when a movie has you all wound up. Better yet is how the movie's very real (character's reaction to a mugging, say) matches up against its rather campy (Kim Cattral's character).

I don't know if you'll like this movie, but I thought it was smart as hell, and the kind of perfectly crafted fun that is so seamless as to be very, very hard to explain the goodness of. I'm not sure I could have said that last sentence more awkwardly. But there you go. Nighty night.