I saw Wordplay tonight with the visiting family, which was fun. I had no idea that crossword puzzles had such a huge following. Jon Stewart was an absolute scream in all of the scenes that featured him.

I just saw The Life Aquatic last night and I absolutely loved it - I was giggling all the way through, and the animated fish and the cutaway ship were brilliant. >>Ned's death<< completely took me by surprise, as I didn't really think it was that kind of film, but it worked. I was surprised that it didn't in general seem to get positive reviews, although maybe Wes Anderson's stuff is something you either love or loathe. I'm definitely going to have to see The Darjeeling Limited now.

Little Manhattan, a very sweet and funny movie about an 11 year old boy falling in love for the first time.

A Good Year. I suppose it was okay, but I couldn't wrap my mind around the fact that this fluffy movie was directed by Ridley Scott. And had Russel Crowe screaming and jumping on furniture because of scorpions. And being funny. Whoa.

I also saw Rescue Dawn. Someone needs to give Christian Bale an award asap.

Word. But I thought Steve Zahn was even better if possible.

I rented Bobby on the weekend and thought it was really good. With that kind of film, I alway worry that there won't be enough storyline because of the multitude of characters, but it was really well done.

I loved A Good Year. Apparently Ridley Scott is a neighbor of Peter Mayle, who wrote the book, and came up with the original story. The book is different from the movie - it's formula Mayle - and Scott filmed it the way he envisioned the story originally.

It's been a while since I saw Four Weddings and a Funeral; strangely, it's held up better than I expected.

La Vie En Rose -- awesome. Definitely want her to win the Oscar. (But how did I forget she was in Big Fish?! Geez!)

Next is I Know Who Killed Me. Purely for the lolz. I promise.

I recently got to see Ratatouille, and I absolutely LOVED it. I still can't get over the fact Janeane Garafolo was the voice of Collette. I don't think I would have ever guessed that in a million years. It was such a sweet story, and I loved the fact it did not have a ridiculously implausible ending.

On the other side, I rented Somewhere In Time at the urging of my co-workers who told me I would "love" it after mentioning Jane Eyre was one of my favorite books. Good lord, the ending of that movie was incredibly stupid! And up until then, I didn't have too many problems with it. However, I do NOT understand it being upheld as some kind of romantic classic. Mostly, I think it's just proof of how gorgeous Jane Seymour is. I like romantic movies, but it was just over the top with the sappiness.

I'm with you on A Good Year. Not sure what critics were looking for that Scott didn't provide, although I'm not too surprised the team behind Gladiator didn't knock a gentle Provence comedy out of the park with audiences.

And while Four Weddings gets dissed a lot a decade later, it's refreshing to re-watch the actual movie once in a while and be reminded how much of the film was about the relationships between the ensemble cast members, compared to how little was about Andie MacDowell. (Who I didn't even think was that bad ... but that's another story.)

I watched Kasi Lemmons Talk To Me, which I really enjoyed, though it runs out of some steam at the end when they focus more on Dewey and his petulent disappointment in Petey, and I kind of think Taraji P. Henson is being seriously robbed of some Oscar consideration, because she is a *knockout* running the gamut from outrageously overblown to some nuanced wordless acting. Wierdly Don Cheadle is the least impressive of the three main performers.

Sigh any movie that relies on "A Change is Gonna Come" as it's touchstone musical cue, will own me. Nice underrated little gem.

Word. Its so incredibly cheesy. But I flove it. I blame the prettiness. My God Jane Seymour is amazing looking and always has been. Also Chris Reeve was like, too beautiful.

I saw that when I was really young, and I found the end profoundly disturbing. The effects weren't great, of course, but when >>he finds the penny and she starts shrieking, and then he...starves to death? I forget. But dies in some horrid sort of way. Sheesh. I guess it ultimately has a happy ending, but that's still f-ed up.<<

I just finished watching The Notebook a couple of minutes ago, and can hardly see what I'm typing for the tears. Why didn't I know it was sad? I was expecting happy romantic tears, not gut wrenching sobbing.

I do finally get the McAdams/Gosling thing though.

I watched that recently and was pleasantly surprised. It was a sweet film, wasn't it? The boy who played Gabe was really good.