I saw two movies that were polar opposites this weekend.
Juno (PG-13): I laughed. I cried. It was overall a pretty great movie. Ellen Page is the young actress playing Juno. She did a very good job playing the quirky straightforward pregnant teenager. Michael Cera also was hilarious as the baby daddy. Jennifer Garner was so touching as the adoptive mother who just wanted a baby. Jason Bateman was fun to watch but his role kind of bothered me. I won't say more about that because I don't want to ruin it for you. Rainn Wilson's cameo at the beginning was absolutely hilarious. There were a few inappropriate/kind of gross parts, especially at the beginning. (Such as her sitting on the toilet taking the pregnancy test.) In all I really liked it and I can see why people are predicting it is going to probably win some big awards. I think just about everyone will like this movie.
Cloverfield (PG-13): Warning: Unless you are superhuman, you will get at least a small headache during this movie if you see it in the theater. I've been looking forward to seeing this movie since I first saw the trailer for it probably 5 months ago when they were just calling it "1-18-08." The whole movie is done on a hand-held camera making it very very jumpy. Thus the headache warning. If you're prone to motion sickness, I'd even recommend some Dramamine. I just got a little bit of a headache. Jon got sick to his stomach. If you think that this is going to be a scary movie, it's not. Just a monster movie. I don't want to tell too much since the whole premise of its promotion leading up to its release was secretive. The whole thing was exciting but a few times there were things that were ridiculous. (Cell phones don't work in the subway in New York!) They left the end wide open for a sequel, which I would definitely see. If you like destruction movies, you'll like it.
Movies in theaters that I STILL want to see: The Bucket List, Mad Money, I Am Legend, Atonement, The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything, Sweeney Todd, Charlie Wilson's War, The Great Debaters, and No Country for Old Men.
During the last few weeks I've seen quite a few movies. I wanted to let you know what I thought of them. They were almost all good.
August Rush (PG) (seen December 10th): Completely amazing. The music was incredible. I'm actually listening to the soundtrack as I'm typing this. Freddie Highmore continues to impress me as he grows up. The storyline was a little bit ridiculous and, like I heard in a review, it was filled with manufactured emotion. Still, I really enjoyed it, if nothing else then just for the music. It was unsettling to see Robin Williams play a bad guy, but I guess it was important to the story. Despite what I've said, I do recommend this movie. It was very sweet.
Enchanted (PG) (seen Dec. 16th): I LOVED this movie. It's great for kids and really funny for adults. Amy Adams is adorable as the Disney princess come to life. James Marsden is so over the top (in a good way) he's like a real cartoon character. Patrick Dempsey. Need I say more? I was excited to see Idina Menzel (who was in Wicked and Rent on Broadway) in the movie, but was sad to see that in a movie with quite a bit of singing that she didn't get to show off her amazing voice. It was also fun to hear the narraration of Julie Andrews, one of my very favorite people, at the very beginning, but unfortunately I think they only pulled her in for about 5 minutes to do her part because she was only at the beginning and the end. Only one part really bothered me and that was when they were cleaning the apartment and hundreds of cockroaches came running out of the sink drain to help. It was disgusting. If I can forget that part, it was a perfect movie. I will definitely be buying it when it comes out on DVD. Here is a really cute clip from the movie:
National Treasure: Book of Secrets (PG) (seen December 24th): I don't think that it was quite as good as the original movie, but it was still pretty good. It included a little bit of history, some true and some made up. The action and adventure was fun and there were quite a few funny parts brought to you courtesy of Justin Bartha's character, Riley. It was a nice surprise to see Helen Mirren playing Nicolas Cage's mom. Her role was great. The movie would be good for kids who were a little bit older, but younger ones might get bored.
27 Dresses (PG-13)(seen December 27th): We, the girls, saw this first sneak preview in Fort Worth. There is apparently another sneak preview next week and then they moved the opening to January 18th. This was another good one. I adore Katherine Heigl and she was precious in this movie. She did a great job playing everyone's best friend. James Marsden was wonderful and "mysterious and sexy". It was also nice to see the small part played by Melora Hardin of The Office. She's basically playing the same kind of role she does on the show, but it's nice to see her away from Michael Scott. They worked the story well to keep you wondering throughout the movie who she was going to end up with. The suprise shot at the very end is really funny. Here is the trailer:
P.S. I Love You (PG-13) (seen December 30th): Oh my goodness. Bring your box of Kleenex. This movie is wonderful, but so freakin' sad. I went with my pregnant sister-in-law and she cried through the whole thing. So be careful if you go if you're pregnant or recently have given birth. Or if you're a girl. Unlike most of her other roles, it was nice to see Hilary Swank playing a girl in this movie. She and Gerard Butler's character were perfect together. Every girl longs to be loved in the way that he loved her. She goes through such an emotional journey through the movie and you go right along with her. Everyone should see it, but like I said, you'll cry.
The Water Horse: Legend of the Deep (PG) (seen January 2nd): I took the boys to see this movie yesterday and was very disappointed with it. It was nothing like the trailer made it seem. C had read the book and said, as is usually true, that the book is much better than the movie. There were several scenes that would be very scary for young children. The parts that C said were not in the book were very boring. They added this whole secondary storyline about a war that was going on and I actually fell asleep during some of those parts. It's good if you have nothing else to do, but I'd wait and see this one on Netflix at home.
I have closed the poll because I feel you are ready for the next one. A Christmas Story, which actually IS the best Christmas movie ever made, came out on top with 35.7% of the vote! Miracle on 34th Street, Rudolph/Frosty/Santa, Christmas Vacation, and Home Alone all tied for 2nd place with 14.3% of the vote. Now on to the next question: What is your favorite Christmas tradition? (Completely secular question.)
In honor of A Christmas Story winning y'all's favorite movie, I'm going to share my top 25 favorite quotes from the movie. I watched it for the first time this year today. (I don't know what took me so long.) I wrote them down as I went. I linked as many as I could find to their sound files. Sorry if some don't work. I tried. Unfortunately I couldn't find some of my very favorite ones (marked with stars) that I used to have the sound file for. In chronological order in the movie, here we go...
"They looked at me as if I had lobsters crawling out of my ears."
"I want an official Red Ryder carbine action 200 shot range model air rifle. Oooooo."
I took D to see this today and we both loved it. It was a really cute movie for kids (Rated G!) but also had a bunch of funny stuff for adults. We went with a girl from my Sunday School class who has a 4 year old boy and she and I were laughing more than the boys were. I highly recommend it.
Juno (PG-13): I laughed. I cried. It was overall a pretty great movie. Ellen Page is the young actress playing Juno. She did a very good job playing the quirky straightforward pregnant teenager. Michael Cera also was hilarious as the baby daddy. Jennifer Garner was so touching as the adoptive mother who just wanted a baby. Jason Bateman was fun to watch but his role kind of bothered me. I won't say more about that because I don't want to ruin it for you. Rainn Wilson's cameo at the beginning was absolutely hilarious. There were a few inappropriate/kind of gross parts, especially at the beginning. (Such as her sitting on the toilet taking the pregnancy test.) In all I really liked it and I can see why people are predicting it is going to probably win some big awards. I think just about everyone will like this movie.
Cloverfield (PG-13): Warning: Unless you are superhuman, you will get at least a small headache during this movie if you see it in the theater. I've been looking forward to seeing this movie since I first saw the trailer for it probably 5 months ago when they were just calling it "1-18-08." The whole movie is done on a hand-held camera making it very very jumpy. Thus the headache warning. If you're prone to motion sickness, I'd even recommend some Dramamine. I just got a little bit of a headache. Jon got sick to his stomach. If you think that this is going to be a scary movie, it's not. Just a monster movie. I don't want to tell too much since the whole premise of its promotion leading up to its release was secretive. The whole thing was exciting but a few times there were things that were ridiculous. (Cell phones don't work in the subway in New York!) They left the end wide open for a sequel, which I would definitely see. If you like destruction movies, you'll like it.
