Movies: January 2005 Archives

Boy meets girl, boy marries girl, boy meets photographer and immediately starts macking on her while his wife is in the other room, boy sets up blind date with boy on the Internets, boy meets girl, boy marries girl, other boy starts sleeping with other girl, girl confronts boy, walks out and starts working in strip club....

As Michael said, "Well, that's two hours of my life I can't get back."

We kept making fun of bits of the dialogue afterwards.

"Did you sleep with him? Where?"

"On our COUCH?"

"How many times did you come?"

"How did he taste?" "Like you, but sweeter!"

The Chronicle had given it a so-so review, but had put all the blame on Julia Roberts. But Julia was fine; she was just working with exceedingly lame material. Natalie Portman was terrific.

But the characters just didn't make sense to me. Their motives were murky and they kept doing really weird things, and why would anybody in their right mind dump Natalie Portman for Julia Roberts anyway? I'm just sayin'.

A Very Long Engagement: boring, MY ASS!

OK, maybe I'm not being fair. And I'm in danger of turning into one of those people like a Thomas Kinkade admirer, who tearfully opines that art critics Just Don't Get It, they're snobs who are jealous of his success and just don't get the beauty and how he paints what's really important in life... but sorry, this was a great movie, and the reviewer didn't get it.

Of course, maybe it helped that I'd read and loved the book for ten years. But the cast was terrific, the dialog was good, yes, it was visually pretty (when not showing people getting blown up), and as Lesley pointed out, The English Patient romanticized war. This one didn't. That alone makes this one worth seeing.

Humph.