Somusing

I haven't seen the original 1977 version of this movie, but now I want to. I've heard that the original is better, and this one was pretty good. I laughed several times. I appreciated the downward financial spiral of the couple, where they didn't just live on credit and act like nothing had happened: it was hyperbolic but also strangely realistic. Of course your house isn't an asset if you don't actually own it, and it seems like people have forgotten that nowadays.

I think I've said before that I like movies in which married couples are on the same side instead of pitted against each other. Fun With Dick and Jane has that going for it, too. Dick and Jane like each other, and they make a good team.

I loved their son who spoke with a Mexican accent (because he spent all his time with their Mexican housekeeper/nanny), the nods (and "Thanks to" credits at the end) to all the recent corporate criminals, the almost-sex scene between overscheduled spouses. And if you want to see something really hilarious, watch the deleted scene on the DVD called "Let's Be Spontaneous" (I think), which continues that scene. I thought it was, well, hilarious.

I love this movie. I saw it a couple of years ago with my sister and last night I got Jon to watch it with me. He hadn't seen it before, and I was nervous that he would think it was just stupid. But I think he liked it, too.

Reese Witherspoon is a fine actress, as she has lately proven in Walk the Line. (I think she was really incredible in that.) In Legally Blond, she's Elle Woods, shallow (seemingly) and materialistic and way too cute. But she's also smart, funny and consistently kind. I love that about this movie. The sorority sisters look like Barbie dolls, squeal and giggle, decorate everything with faux fur and lots of pink. But they're nice, unlike the judgmental Harvard Law School crowd, with their brown and grey sweaters and identical laptops.

On the West Coast, in her sheltered, rich-girl world, "everyone loves me," as she says. But at Harvard, she's mocked and targeted by almost everyone she meets. I love that she's brave and confident and doesn't take the crap. But she's not into revenge, either, and at the first sign of friendship from those who have treated her so badly, she's just nice. Of course, Elle wins over the Harvard crowd in the end, but she, like, totally deserves it. I think it's a great movie--funny and with a good message about succeeded as yourself, and not becoming one of "them."

What an uplifting movie. I liked it very much. It's always delightful to hear Scottish accents, of course (I'm revealing how shallow I am), but this is also a good story. A middle-aged man loses his job and decides to swim the English Channel. A family tragedy has caused some issues between him and his son. Brenda Blethyn, who was wonderful as a more-sympathetic-than-usual Mrs. Bennett in the latest version of Pride and Prejudice, plays his wife, who is secretly learning to drive a bus. It's all about family relationships and friendship and other worthy things, and it's really good!

I think it's fair to say that I hated this movie. Maybe it's not as bad as I think, but it was recommended to us, and I can't figure out why. The screenplay was horrible, the acting also, and while the filmmakers tried to make things look authentic for Arkansas in 1935, there were just too many oversights. All the tenant farmers were wearing the same brand-new overalls. Some fastened only one shoulder strap, but they were still the same overalls! I think some of them had been ripped, and they were dirty sometimes, but they still looked too new. The inside walls of their house/shack were papered with ... paper. I've seen old cabins papered in newspaper, and maybe that's what this was. But it was way too bright inside, what with the bright white paper and lots of overhead lighting. Maybe they had overhead kerosene lanterns? Also, they keep talking about "gettin' a handle on these crops" and "bringin' in the crops," but all we see is the men hoeing in a big field of dirt, and the women scattering what looks like dust. I think it's supposed to be the dust bowl, but it just looks confusing and weird.

Did I say the acting was bad? And the screenplay? Several of the characters made furious, defensive speeches, apparently provoked by ... nothing. Or maybe the provocation was that almost sullen look given by that other person.

Apparently this won best feature film at Telluride in 1999, which is completely baffling to me. Some reviews that I found on the internet mentioned beautiful cinematography, but if it was good, I was blinded by the rest of it. The more I think about it, the more I hate it. There are plenty of other ways to learn about the South in the 1930s.

Every time I go to my sister's house (Hi, Ivy!), we briefly consider watching Shanghai Knights, but then we don't because I haven't seen Shanghai Noon yet. Well, now I have! It was pretty funny sometimes. My favorite part: a dusty pioneer couple gazes in astonishment at the three Chinese Imperial Guards in their strange get-up, practicing sword play. The wife says, "They're not like any Injuns I ever seen, Jedediah!" and he says, "That's because they're not Injuns, woman. They're Jews!"

I think I would have liked it better if I'd seen it when it was still new, but Jon and I had already gone through our Jackie Chan phase when it came out. (At least a couple of times, we took our two babies to a movie theater, hoped they'd fall asleep, and watched some Jackie Chan movie.) My exposure to martial arts films is extremely limited, but Jackie Chan is fun and easy to watch. And of course, I love that he does his own stunts.

Owen Wilson is funny, but by now, his method of funny-ness (funniness?) is not as surprising and refreshing as it probably was six years ago.

I enjoyed watching it. Sometimes I think I might be getting too old for the sillier comedies, though, which makes me kind of sad. Maybe I'll appreciate them again when my boys get a little older.

Kathy Bates, Dan Akroyd, Rupert Everett, Jonathon Pryce, Julie Andrews, Barry Manilow, etc. Kind of a bizarre movie, but Kathy Bates is a joy to watch. I've loved her ever since seeing Misery. (I went with a friend, who was pretty freaked out by the movie, and later, it was so fun to call his house and leave messages for him from Annie Wilkes.) She is really a great actress. She sings in this movie, too, and her voice is great. All of the acting in this movie was very good, actually.

Not necessarily recommended viewing, but it was entertaining.

I don't think I liked this movie. I don't mean to be indecisive, but it was kind of weird. There were several subplots and extra characters who turn out to be pretty important, but they overshadowed the main plot, if it was indeed the main plot. I don't think it should be called a "romantic comedy," either. I guess there was romance if you think it's romantic to watch a young, hip American girl (Kate Hudson) sleeping around--towards the beginning of the movie, she meets a French guy, Yves, and they shake hands and make eye contact, and in the very next scene, they are watching TV together in bed, half dressed. And that's it for that romance! Then she becomes someone's mistress. While continuing to carry on with Yves.

There were some interesting contrasts between French and American culture, which made the movie a nice companion to a book I recently read called Almost French by Sarah Turnbull. Also funny and disturbing to watch the English guy towards the end eating and talking disparagingly about the French.

It seems like everything with Kate Hudson in it features her in an infinite number of extremely hip, endlessly varying outfits, as if she's not a real person, but a life-size doll/chameleon who tempts the costume people way too much. Tailored suit and heels? Yes! Flowing hippy skirt and scarves? Yes! Jeans, T-shirt and over-sized sweater? Yes! And let's change her hair in every scene! She is pretty beautiful, though. And cute. Beautiful and cute!

In general, the movie wasn't funny. It was more of a drama. It had beautiful people and scenery, interesting characters, intelligent dialogue, art and food, lots of French, which I enjoy trying to understand. But I still didn't like it that much. It may be that it was just too amoral for me. Or just immoral. I don't know.

Michael Douglas and Albert Brooks play fathers whose son and daughter are about to get married. It's mildly funny, but just an okay movie. I like Ryan Reynolds, who plays the groom-to-be. Albert Brooks is also funny, though in a whiny, annoying way, kind of like Woody Allen. I'm not a fan of Candice Bergen, who plays the ex-wife of Michael Douglas' character. Yep, pretty much run-of-the-mill.

I liked this a lot. Funny and not run-of-the-mill. (You could call it a romantic comedy, even, but it takes place in Australia with real Australians, which makes it a refreshing romantic comedy.) It's about a guy who accidentally flies away in a deckchair attached to huge helium-filled balloons. He ends up far away and starts a new life.

I won't address here the problem with many romantic comedies, namely the question of why we should believe that the old relationship is so wrong and the new one so right; and what is going to make the new relationship work--forever! or for a year or so, if it involves high school kids--when the old one didn't? Perhaps I'm overthinking the romantic comedy genre, which is about the beginning of a relationship, and only incidentally about the end of one, sometimes.

Anyway, recommended, especially if you enjoy Australian accents, watching people drive on the wrong side of the road, and hearing lots of strange shortenings of words. We are all familiar with the Australian "barbie," as in barbeque, but what about "footy" for football and "brecky" for breakfast? My kids would fit right in; they call tennis shoes "tennas."

This movie from 1963 was apparently the inspiration for the TV show The Waltons. We just wanted to watch it because it was filmed in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, which is near where we live. In it are Henry Fonda, Maureen O'Hara, and the guy who played the oldest brother in Swiss Family Robinson (James MacArthur, IMDb tells me).

We watched it with our kids and were surprised at the sexual references throughout the movie. (Maybe it's naive to think that a movie from 1963 about a homesteading family would be devoid of that kind of thing; maybe sexual references were all the rage in 1963. Then again, we recently watched Gone With the Wind with the kids. It has relatively recently been rated G--in spite of all kinds of things that I wouldn't normally consider appropriate for "General Audiences." Like the violent death of a child; a silhouetted amputation with plenty of noise; a heroine with nearly exclusively self-serving motivations; a few really screwed up marriages; murder and murder threats; several scenes with wounded soldiers, etc. And the d-word, of course! Damn, that would be. Maybe it's naive to think old movie are always good and wholesome.)

Anyway, there were a couple of very aggressive young women in Spencer's Mountain and plenty of kissing, which my older boys cringed through, because kissing is gross, you know. And I must admit that it was lengthy kissing.

Pretty entertaining, though. Clay (Henry Fonda) and Olivia Spencer (Maureen O'Hara) are the parents of nine children living in 1950s Wyoming with an amazing view of the Tetons and the valley at their feet. Clay is one of nine brothers, whose parents homesteaded in the area. They want education for their children, and the movie's about their struggles to get their oldest son Clayboy to college, so he won't end up working in the quarry like his dad. There's certainly beautiful scenery, and there are several amusing scenes with various small-town characters. Also one scene of the family's house in the distance while family members call out their good nights, just like in The Waltons.

So that's where the name "Johnboy" came from. Clayboy! I'm so smart.