I have good intentions ...

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and yes, I know which road is paved therewith. But I'm pretty sure failing to act on my good intentions of posting on this blog won't lead there. Anyway...

It's time to play catch up again. So here are a bunch of movies I've seen in the last several months:

White Teeth (2002). This was a British miniseries and was pretty good. Of course, I loved the book, and this couldn't reach the complexity that I loved about that, but it was worth watching. Disclaimer: I'm not advocating that everyone go watch it, though. The book is racy and so is the movie. It's foreign, and not rated like our American stuff. It's not terrible, but there's some stuff in it. Just so you know.

Leon the Pig Farmer (1992). I saw this on Hulu (don't know if it's still there). There's plenty of delightful Jewish humor here (a Jewish man discovers that his real father is a pig farmer, and that's pretty funny), but it's a little slow-moving. It may be that it's just showing its age. Movies were slower way back in the early '90s.

Emma (2009). No, we'll never get tired of film adaptations of Jane Austen's novels. Emma was probably my least favorite novel to read, but this is a nice adaptation. Jonny Lee Miller is Mr. Knightley and I approve. I still get uncomfortable at the idea that the older and wiser Mr. Knightley is raising up his perfect bride by chastising and guiding her, but in principle, I don't necessarily have a problem with that. Also, Emma is annoying! But she was supposed to be. But now I'm writing about the book. She's not that annoying in this PBS mini-series.

Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief (2010). They changed the story quite a bit for the movie, and I don't know why, but it was a lot of fun. We took the whole family for someone's birthday, and everyone enjoyed it, even Jon.

The Blind Side (2009). Very, very good. A great story and very good acting and I love seeing pictures of the real people at the end of the movie.

Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs (2009). I wanted to like this, and I guess I didn't hate it while I was actually watching it, but it was weird and kind of irritating. Although I did like Mr. T as the cop ("This contact lens represents you! And my eye represents my eye! I've got my eye on you!"). Oh, but I just looked up that quote and saw some other quotes from the movie and I have to rethink my overall impression. And here it is: the end ruined it. There are some really funny lines in this movie (maybe a little too SNL-esque, but funny), but the end was so dumb. I love the book, by the way!

The Interpreter (2005). It hasn't been that long since we watched this, and I'm struggling to remember details from it. Now I remember, and it was entertaining but not memorable. How 'bout that?

Gentlemen Broncos (2009). Oh my. Oh my. I'm not sure what to say about this latest from Jared and Jerusha Hess, the writers of Napoleon Dynamite (brilliant!) and Nacho Libre (not as brilliant but still pretty funny). Gentlemen Broncos is by turn hilarious, disgusting, insane, brilliant, and offensive. I could probably come up with more adjectives. If you are a reader or watcher of science fiction, you should prolly see it. If you have a sense of humor about it, anyway.

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