Out of the Past (Jacques Tourneur)
Good but not quite great film noir with Robert Mitchum as a seemingly well to do man on the run from his shady past. Some really fine performances, particularly from Kirk Douglas, and a pretty complex plot make for entertaining viewing, but ultimately I was left feeling that it didn't quite come together.
A History of Violence (David Cronenberg)
Unlike Mitchum, Viggo Mortensen's seemingly well to do man has managed to suppress all memories of his shady past and now leads a quiet life in a small town, complete with wife and kids and a job running a local diner. A lot of people think Cronenberg left horror behind entirely in the 2000s, but this is just as much a horror story as The Fly or Videodrome, and like those films is a meditation on the psychology of personal transformation, the animalistic side of man and man's potential for extreme violence. The plot is very straightforward, alarmingly so by Dave's usual standards, but this is a very internal film where the inner workings of the characters are the focus above all else.