Somusing

I liked this sequel just as much as the original. It's funny and clever. And this time they go into paintings, too, which was a delightful twist. My kids loved it, too. (Okay, so they're not very hard to please. But I'm impressed with any movie that is entertaining for both kids and parents.)

I'm not a Trekkie. I've seen only bits and pieces of the TV show(s), and I saw one Star Trek movie back whenever, and that's about it. So I don't know how accurately the new Star Trek fits into the overall story, but I thought it was pretty good on its own. It was fun that Leonard Nimoy's appearance was significant and not just a cameo role. I liked it.

Movies:

Amazing Grace (2006). I didn't have very high expectations for this film (I don't know why), but I liked it pretty well. It's a good, family-friendly treatment of a serious subject. My kids liked it, too.

State of Play (2009). I'm betting this will be one of the last newspaper films, and it's a good one. Russell Crowe and Helen Mirren are wonderful actors, and everybody else does a great job, too. I liked it a lot.

The Soloist (2009). I just claimed State of Play would be one of the last newspaper films, but The Soloist is another, sort of. It's excellent, not trite or sappy, based on a true story. I recommend it.

Expiration Date (2006). I think our local library must have purchased a bunch of little-known independent films in some kind of package deal, and this was one of them. (Our library is really small, and it's always immediately apparent when they've gotten new DVDs.) I thought it was surprisingly good. Maybe slightly cheesy sometimes, but pleasant and worth watching.

Bedtime Stories (2008). My expectations for this were fairly low, but it's actually pretty good. Of course, it gets increasingly unbelievable and corny towards the end, but there are lots of funny moments. One my favorite parts features environmentalist children's books, with titles like Organic Squirrel Gets a Bike Helmet and Rainbow Alligator Saves the Wetlands.

Cranford (2007). Another delightful BBC adaptation of an Elizabeth Gaskell novel. Or rather three novels, in this case. I've read Cranford, and now I have to get my hands on the other two on which this mini-series is based. Did I mention it's delightful? It is.

North and South (2004). I loved the novel and, although the mini-series is a bit different, I loved this BBC version, too. I thought it portrayed the class differences and disputes very well. It's a little more serious than Cranford but still wonderful.

Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs (2009). Sometimes dull and boring, sometimes excruciatingly dull and boring. I just stuck this on the end here for some balance, because I really didn't like it.

Jon and I watched this on Blu-ray on his parents' giant flat screen TV. I'd been looking forward to it because I loved Batman Begins and I'd read some pretty good reviews of The Dark Knight. But it's not as good as Batman Begins, although it looked awesome on Blu-ray. I like Christian Bale as Batman. But I think my expectations were too high for the movie.

Saw this at our local drive-in with the kids. I love going to that drive-in. Anyway, my siblings and I liked the Witch Mountain movies when we were kids. This new one has very little to do with those, but it was fun. Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson is sort of a goofball.

I'd heard that this movie was really good (although I can't remember where I heard that now), and my expectations may have been too high. It captures some experiences of sister missionaries in a German-speaking country, so that was fun for me, (because I served a mission in the Dresden, Germany, mission from 1992-1993). There's a lot of German in it, which was also fun, though some of it is oddly translated in the subtitles. There isn't much of a plot, although what plot there was stayed true to what might actually happen on a mission. It's definitely one of the better movies targeting an LDS audience, but not as dramatic or moving as God's Army or its sequel, States of Grace.

This was our other in-flight movie, and it was good. It's another painful story, though. Worth seeing.

Watched this on the way to New York. It was better than I'd anticipated, though difficult to watch--I guess I haven't thought about the double standards of our Western past for a while. I'm interested in reading the book on which the film is based, Georgiana: Duchess of Devonshire by Amanda Foreman, now published as The Duchess. It's a biography and not historical fiction, which makes it more interesting to me than otherwise.

This is not a great movie, but I really like it. Part of it was filmed in the Czech Republic, and there are a few conversations in French (with subtitles, but I could follow them) and one in Czech, in which I recognized one whole word! I know that's ridiculous, but I was pleased. I also love the message of the movie and that the main character is played by Queen Latifah and not by one of the more common emaciated ladies of Hollywood.

For Zed's birthday, we took all the kids and Jon's parents to an actual theater to see this. All the funniest parts were shown in the trailers, but we still enjoyed it. I like Kevin James.