Marilyn Hotchkiss' Ballroom Dancing and Charm School -- it's an extended feature-length movie of a mockumentary from 1990 or so, and it's really sort of quietly cool.

Next, probably tomorrow, is A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints. I'm getting really into Robert Downey Jr.

Stranger Than Fiction. I really liked it. The scene when >>Harold brings Ana flours was maybe the most awesome thing ever.<<

It's great to see him slowly making a comeback after being one of those wastes of really promising talent that seems to happen many. (Mickey Rourke is probably sidelined to creepy supporting roles and Tom Sizemore is this close to a seedy death) And it turns out he's a total comic geek and chased down geting Iron Man. Between his rising stock, comic book interests, and array of amusing anecdotes, I think he's someone I could totally hang with.

Little Miss Sunshine, excellent film. So sweet and funny. Alan Arkin's grandfather reminded us of my own, albeit less mobile and not a drug taker, grandmother with the way he talked so we liked him. And Steve Carell was brilliant.

Then the next night, we watched 21 Grams, it's very good. Intense and you do have to pay attention at the start to figure out the different threads but it's incredibly well acted. My mother couldn't stop talking about it afterwards, she was really into it.

I watched The Queen last night. I loved the Queen Mum. For some reason, I'd always pictured her as this crazy old woman who said hilarious, random things, and who knew everyone was sitting around waiting for her to die.

I liked it, though, I didn't love it. I thought the bit with the stag was a bit heavy-handed. But I did enjoy the subversive side of Charles, and Helen Mirren was fabulous.

I think Robert Downey Jr's talent saved him. If he was a lesser actor he'd have no career right now, but he was interesting enough that people made concessions for him, and were willing to cast him. Not to say he didnt have trouble (his insurance is insanely high, and directors have had to drop him because of that).

But yeah, great to see him working and doing well, and seeming clean. I rented A Scanner Darkly a couple of days ago and he was fantastic.

Also Mickey Rourke got a couple of critics noms last year for Sin City, and I dont know, I got a big kick out of that.

You know, he was. I really did not enjoy that movie on any level, but I do remember he made a good bugshit crazy guy.

Really? Not even visually?

Nope. I was put off by it and saw no purpose to it. If you want actors, use actors. You want animation, animate. There's some blurry ground for things like Gollum and King Kong, but an entire movie of rotoscoping is a bit much.

Hee, I saw that in the theatre with a friend of mine, and by the end, he had this insane sort of massive crush on the Queen Mum. We got back to our dorm, and he IMed me hysterically an hour later -- "THE QUEEN MUM DIED!!! WTF???" It was great.

Ralph Bakshi would have words with you. Crude, wheeze-filled words.

I've got your back Laddical.

Notes on a Scandal--what a pair of powerhouse performances. And Bill Nighy more than held his own as well. It was creeptastic, though, and I'm a bit conflicted about how they presented Dench's character's motivations.

Glad I saw it, though.

Mr Skeffington (I'm now reading the book). Interestingly the dvd comes with a Director's Commentary - is this the earliest film to do so? It's quite fun as among all the anecdotes about how lovely Claude Rains was to work this there's a long saga about what a complete bitch Bette Davis was to work with and what a bully she was to the fairly inexperienced director until one day they went to his house to sort out their problems - 'and that was the start of our affair...'

We rented it last week and I was convinced beyond anything that it would suck horribly (yes, we purposely watch bad movies sometimes), but then it turned out to be okay. And I did hate the very end, but still, the whole movie had been very enjoyable up until then, so I'm willing to pretend it ended a few minutes earlier. And yes, the car chase was kickass.


We also rented Pan's Labyrinth. I think it suffered because of all the hype. I had it so built up in my head that it was kind of disappointing. I did like it quite a bit, and there were parts that were downright freaky, but it wasn't what I was expecting.

What really bothers me is that people apparently do not pay attention to ratings, like, at all. My husband has had several co-workers comment that they want to rent it for their little kids, and he's like, "Oh my God, NO!"