Somusing

This doesn't follow the typical formula, does it? And I have to admire that. Still, I think it's kind of an annoying movie. Also, watching it in 2008, it's hard to get over the size of Julia Robert's mobile phone.

Saw this in an actual theater, which is always something to celebrate. It was very exciting, well-acted, surprising. I have to agree with Eric Snider, though, who said the movie had "a tendency to bring up hot-button issues, frown thoughtfully at them for a few moments, then set them down again before moving on to the next superficially treated topic." There are some interesting concepts here, but they're not deeply entertained. But it was an entertaining couple of hours.

Note: Eric Snider used to write a humor column in BYU's newspaper The Daily Universe back when Jon and I were there. Now he's a film critic, but he still writes funny stuff, too.

I liked this. I don't know if it's actually better than your average romantic comedy, but it seemed like it was. Maybe I just haven't watched any good ones lately. Anyway, it's good, and you get to see Patrick Dempsey in a kilt, albeit a "mini-kilt" that looks kind of ridiculous. I think the music was decent, too.

I thought this was cute, a smarter-than-average teen flick based on the Snow White fairy tale. I could do without the feel-good speech at the end of a movie like this, but whatever.

This is not a happy film, but it's very good. Based on a novel by W. Somerset Maugham, it's about an English couple in a loveless and faithless marriage. The husband, a doctor specializing in infectious diseases, takes them off to a remote Chinese village to deal with a cholera outbreak, where they go through some harrowing stuff that changes their relationship. Very good.

Run-of-the-mill rom-com, predictable but occasionally funny. My favorite line, from the Girl's best friend to the Guy's best friend: "If I could kill someone with my mind right now, it would be you."

This independent film was recommended to me by my friend Kim. I'd seen it in our local video rental store many times and was always intrigued, but I avoided it because the description on the back hinted that the main character, Jenna, might cheat on her husband, and normally I'm against that kind of thing and don't really want a movie to make me feel all warm and fuzzy about the new guy, who's so much better for her and really understands her, etc., etc.

But Kim recommended it, and I trust Kim. I liked it a lot. There is marital infidelity in it, but the movie doesn't force you accept it as somehow inevitable and the only way to true happiness, and it serves to develop the characters quite a bit. The characters are more complex than in most movies, too. There are great scenes where the Jenna, a waitress who makes unique pies at the diner where she works, creates pie recipes with names based on what's happening in her life: "I Hate My Husband" Pie (he's definitely hateable) and "Earl Murders Me Because I'm Having an Affair" Pie (I don't think I'm giving anything away here).

Anyway, it's a good movie that actually makes you understand life and people a little better. Thanks for the recommendation, Kim!

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Don't read this part unless you want to be sad; it kind of ruined my initial enjoyment of the movie: The film was written and directed by Adrienne Shelly, who also plays Jenna's fellow waitress and friend Dawn. She was pregnant when she wrote the film, and her daughter plays the toddler at the end. Just after it was accepted at the Sundance Film Festival, Adrienne Shelly was murdered, apparently in a fairly random incident: she walked into her office and found someone stealing money from her purse, and he killed her and tried to make it look like a suicide by hanging her from a shower rod with a bedsheet. Her husband found her. The guy who did it is in prison now. Anyway, sad stuff happens to all kinds of people, I guess.

This is not great, but it's amusing and pleasant enough. I always like John Cusack.

I thought this would be a silly romantic comedy because Ryan Reynolds is in it. There are definitely funny moments, but it's actually kind of a serious story about family relationships. It's not the best movie in the world, but it has good messages about honesty and loyalty and (perhaps unintentionally) communication, and I like Ryan Reynolds' way of being funny, even if it doesn't change a lot from movie to movie.

Not only do the Bourne movies have the best sequel titles, they're also just good sequels. The Bourne Ultimatum did not disappoint. I'm kind of glad we waited to watch it on a TV, because it has the same jerky, dizzying cinematography that The Bourne Supremacy had, and that's much easier to take on a small screen. It's a good movie, although I kind of missed the romance of the first. (There is a very vague hint of a past romance, but that's all.) Otherwise, it's exciting and tense and has a pretty satisfying ending.

The special features on the DVD are some of the most interesting we've ever watched. When the camera shot follows Bourne as he jumps from a roof into a window in the next building, that camera was actually following him. They strapped a camera onto a stunt man who jumped after him. Pretty cool.