Today, I caught Charlize Theron's new work, Monster. If she doesn't win every Best Actress award she's up for, then check to find out who paid off who. This is easily the best performance of her career.

Theron is completely unrecognizable in this role. If you didn't know it was her, you would have never guessed. She put on 30 pounds for the role, but the makeup people probably deserve an Oscar for their work as well.

Overall, it's is a very well done film. The writing and directing move the story along, painting a rather sympathetic portrait of a very unsympathetic character. The supporting actors and actresses do a fair to middlin' job (to borrow from my mother) — nothing all that stand out, nothing bad, either. Christina Ricci holds her own, portraying the child that Theron's character allows herself to love.

I would say that this is the very antithesis of a date movie. Much like Boys Don't Cry (another harrowing powerful movie combining sexuality and violence), I walked out of the theatre pledging myself to asexuality for awhile.