Old Favorite: Ferris Bueller's Day Off

Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.

They simply don't make movies like this (or Sixteen Candles, or The Breakfast Club) anymore. No kidding, when was the last time they made a good clean high school movie that wasn't full of Serious Issues or raunchiness fit to rival Howard Stern? (If you know of some, this is where you should tell me what they are!)

Actually, I know what my problem is. I just sorely miss John Hughes (although perhaps not where the Beethoven or Home Alone movies are concerned). Mix that with a small dose of nostalgia, and there you have my love for Ferris Bueller.

Here's to stopping and looking around.

Morning Glory

After years as a netflix subscriber, I'm celebrating a new development: I can finally watch netflix movies on my TV! So what do I do? I impulsively watch a movie that wasn't even in my queue.

And what did I find? A stereotypical and saccharine romantic comedy with no surprises, wrapped up in a package that can only be described as  "heartwarming".

But Harrison Ford was in it!! I thought surely that had to count for something. Even if he was channeling the gruff-voiced and serious-faced Clint Eastwood instead of the dashing young Han Solo. But I thought wrong.

OK, it wasn't horrible. But it was formulaic and conventional and unexceptional and I should have gone to bed two hours ago instead.

I'm wondering if it was intentional that the network call sign was ibs? After watching this movie I feel I may be suffering from a bit of that myself. Or, more likely, a diabetic coma. This movie is not a fiber donut.

Abre los ojos (Open Your Eyes)

I have had this movie out from Netflix since last MAY. I can't remember when I started watching it (July? August?) but I do know I watched about half of it, then never got around to watching the rest until tonight.

That's not to say it's a bad movie. It's just that it is SO similar to the American remake (Vanilla Sky), and there's really nothing that marks it as superior. This Spanish version was done first, but not (in my eyes) done better.

Very interesting to see Penelope Cruz play the character of Sofia in both the original and the remake. I love her for being so pretty!

Vanilla Sky (rewatch)

I first watched this movie several years ago (can't remember exactly when) and, as time passed, I felt like I hardly remembered much beyond the fact that it was really good. I watched it again this past June and jotted down a few notes about it, but then never got around to making it into an official blog post.

Tonight I've just finished watching the Spanish original version, so I figured it was about time I posted what I wrote last June. Of course in the past four months I've not thought of anything to add; if anything, I've forgotten more than I remember. But here's what I wrote when it was fresh on my mind:

This movie was better the first time around, because as I watched it I found I actually remembered more than I'd thought. So the surprise of WTF was going on was dampened quite a bit. But I still enjoyed the re-watch. On the other hand, I'm thinking two watchings is about enough for this movie. Or maybe I should limit myself to watching it once a decade, anyway.

Notice the soundtrack when you watch this one! It's pretty decent.

I might add a little synopsis for you now: Pretty rich boy David Aames (Tom Cruise) has had everything in life handed to him on a platter, including Sofia (Penelope Cruz), the beautiful woman his best friend has just met. But when the golden boy's face is disfigured in a horrifying car wreck, his formerly charmed life crumbles. Or does it?

Bridesmaids

Tonight, for a change, I watched a movie. With friends! (Because, you know, That's What Friends Are For.) And for an even bigger change, I'm actually going to blog about it. Who knows if I'll ever get around to telling you about Vanilla Sky, Source Code, The Help, or Harry Potter 7b, but you're going to hear about Bridesmaids whether you want to or not.

I'd been told Bridesmaids was Really Really Funny. I'd heard it was The Hangover for women. (Sorry, I had to say it. EVERYONE ELSE says it.) So, my opinion? Yeah, it made me laugh, and I like laughing. I still think There's Something About Mary is more funny, maybe just because Bridesmaids veers off into depressing territory (not when Annie hits what her mom thinks is rock bottom, but when Annie actually hits rock bottom). But at least things are looking up for Annie at the end.

Too bad I didn't watch this movie when it first came out. Where was Gil when I needed a note on my door that said "Do not come into my room and read my diary and wear my clothes"? At least now I'll know for next time.

Before I go, I just need to tell you this: You're more beautiful than Cinderella, you smell like pine needles and your face is like sunshine. Every girl needs to hear that at least once in her life.

Surfwise

Maybe my family isn't so weird after all.

Surfwise is the true story of the Paskowitz family: nine children and their parents, Dorian ("Doc") and Juliette, who spent years crammed into a teeny tiny travel trailer, living on the fringes of society and surfing whenever they could.

Doc eschewed money, espoused simple living, and tried to teach his children the difference between education and knowledge. He wanted to give them the opportunity to learn from life experiences rather than from schooling, allowing his children no formal education whatsoever. But it didn't work. Their life was like a failed experiment.

Doc admits that many times he was "far too radical and far too tight-fisted" in raising his children. He realized, too late, that "a real man should control himself before he controls his children." He feels he failed to give his children "the tools that invent opportunity," when that was what he most wanted to do. He did provide his family with "love, togetherness, food, clothing, shelter, diet, exercise," but at what cost?

The cost is evident in the range of reactions among his nine children. Most of them have rejected their upbringing and the family is splintered, though one of the boys asserts that "even a flawed family that sticks together is better than no family at all." I can't believe it, but one of the nine actually plans on "keeping the dream alive," intending to put his children through the same childhood his dad forced him to live . . . only on a boat instead of in a camper.

Surfwise exemplifies something my own parents (unintentionally) taught me: trying to keep tight control over your children is like trying to squeeze a wet bar of soap. Sooner or later it ends up out of your hands and farther away from you than you'd ever wanted.

Funny how so many of the kids look nothing like the dad . . .

Black Swan

WOW, this was a good movie. I mean, it's always fun to watch a ballerina go insane, right? And Natalie Portman does it to perfection.

I've always thought Portman was beautiful (though maybe not so much in this movie poster), but I've never been as impressed with her acting as in this film. Those Star Wars prequels didn't quite do her justice. In fact, it wasn't just her acting--I don't think any of the other films she's been in have been as good as this one. Closer was pretty good, but this one's better.

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly

True story: Author and Elle magazine editor Jean-Dominique Bauby, age 43, suffered a stroke in 1995 that rendered him almost completely paralyzed, though his abilities to think and communicate were unimpaired. In this debilitated state he actually DICTATED HIS ENTIRE AUTOBIOGRAPHY by blinking his left eye. If you're like me, though that is decidedly amazing, it also sounds like it makes for a really really boring movie.

Fortunately whoever made this movie has a better imagination than I do, so it was more than just two hours of a man blinking one eye. It was actually a pretty good (if understandably somber) movie.

Here's Bauby's one statement that impressed me the most: "I have decided to never feel sorry for myself again."

I kind of feel like now I'm required to watch My Left Foot.

Angel Heart

Here's a movie that had somehow slipped my notice for about 24 years. (Aww, I see that it came out in theaters on my brother's 7th birthday.) This is my kind of movie: full of suspense, dark atmosphere, and mystery.

But I'm going to have to stop reading those darn netflix synopses. After a nice spoiler-free beginning about private detective Harry Angel being hired to track down a missing singer, this one mentions that "each time Harry makes contact with someone who might know the singer's whereabouts, he or she is killed in a horrible, ritualistic fashion." So I was already suspecting what might not have otherwise crossed my mind. I mean, after reading that, who do YOU figure the killer is? The brazen striking of a match on the first corpse's shoe confirmed it for me.

Even without any help from netflix, I managed to guess the real identity of the character Robert DeNiro was playing fairly early on. It wasn't even his character's name that gave it away (although, in retrospect, the name was a huge clue).  It was those too-obvious fingernails. I could swear they were longer and more pointy each time he was on screen. But I will admit (with relief) that I didn't guess everything. I don't think I realized who Johnny Favorite was a minute sooner than Harry Angel realized it.

It's kind of hard to believe Mickey Rourke used to be relatively nice-looking.

Donnie Brasco

Watched this one sometime in the past week or two, really can't remember when. It was pretty good, but I didn't have much to say about it then (which means I have even less to say now). Pretty much all I can come up with is that it's a (basically) true story about the NYC mafia and an undercover FBI agent who infiltrates it.

Al Pacino is the quintessential movie gangster. It's hard to remember he's played other types of roles.

Water for Elephants

I was disappointed in this movie. I mean, it wasn't completely horrible (it's based on a pretty good book, and Robert Pattinson is in it!! How bad could it be? Oh, wait . . . ) but I just didn't think it was that great. I don't know how much of my disappointment I should attribute to high expectations, and how much was due to my unusual frame of mind while I was watching it.

My main complaint is that the whole thing seemed overdone. The acting was so serious and heavy-handed, and the lines (while not necessarily corny) were just So Dang Dramatic. OK, maybe my friend BR had a point--it's set in a circus. Of course it's overdone. But I could have gone for just a dash of subtlety and a smidge of figure-it-out-yourself, because it kind of sucks when a movie ALWAYS spells EVERYTHING out for you.

All movie adaptations are going to leave out some parts of the book, but two scenes stood out to me as very watered-down. This actually didn't bother me a bit, as they were scenes I really could have done without reading (walking in on a midget jacking off, and a highly detailed description of what went on in the "cooch tent"). Of course, I'm sure those scenes had to be attenuated because the movie was rated PG-13. But what the heck is that all about? ALL MOVIES WITH ROBERT PATTINSON IN THEM SHOULD BE X-RATED!!

Speaking of Robert Pattinson, though, I have finally noticed that he always plays the same character in every movie, and that is . . . Robert Pattinson. Edward Norton he is not. But at least he is smokin' hot. That makes up for a lot.

If you  have to pick between the book and the movie, read the book. Just get the movie cover version so you can picture RP as Jacob all the way through.

Taxi Driver

Yet another movie Hud told me I wouldn't want to watch, but he was wrong. (I am one step closer to watching The Godfather.) Yes, there's a child hooker and a date to the porn theater and a bloody shootout for a climax, and I wouldn't want to watch it with my mom, but I survived it and was even intrigued by it.

I can't help but compare this one to Midnight Cowboy. Not that they tried to tell the same story, but they're both about the seedy side of New York. However, Taxi Driver is a far better movie, and I think I can attribute that to Robert DeNiro vs. Jon Voight. Though I'm sure some of the credit is also due to Martin Scorsese vs. John Schlesinger. (Who?)

So here's an interesting question. (The Sixth Sense ruined me, by the way.) Did Travis Bickle really survive that shootout? And win the acclaim of the world, including Betsy? I can't help but wonder if that was all his dying fantasy.

Dogtooth

Don't tell my mom I watched this movie. In fact, you probably shouldn't even tell her it exists.

This is the story of a Greek family of five who, except for the father who holds a job in the real world, live in complete isolation from the rest of society. It is WEIRD and DISTURBING and, well, frequently so weird and disturbing that it's funny. Don't get me wrong, it is not a comedy. But who wouldn't laugh to see the terrified son stalking a clearly deadly housecat with a huge pair of garden shears? Albeit while simultaneously cringing at the thought of what will come next, of course.

This is a movie I won't soon forget.

Midnight Cowboy

This is pretty much one of those "seen it, mark it off the list" movies. Kind of an oddity or a curiosity, but nowhere near a Best Movies Ever movie. Though it does have quite a GROOVY soundtrack. (But I suppose I can't blame 1969.)

I guess this is the youngest I've ever seen Jon Voight. I never knew he could move his facial muscles back then! I have seen Deliverance, which was made only three years later, but I really can't recall whether he was already wooden-faced in 1972. I was probably too worried about the poor guy squealing like a pig for Voight to make much of an impression on me in that movie.

I also never noticed how much of Angelina Jolie is evident in Voight's younger face. They've got the same jaw and chin, the same lips, the same eyes. Kinda freaky, actually.

Movie in a nutshell: Young Texas loser Joe Buck moves to New York City to hit it big as a male prostitute but ends up paying for sex or giving it away for free more often than he earns anything from it. The men seem to want him more than the women do. His greasy, crippled friend Ratzo ("Hey! I'm walkin' here!") is the best thing in his life, and life just doesn't turn out like he'd planned.

Alice in Wonderland

I think it took me about three weeks to watch this movie. That's really not so much an insult to the film as it is a testament to the fact that my mind was elsewhere. But. If it had been truly compelling I would have made a point of watching it over a much more brief time span.

"Visually stunning" is such a cliché, but that's what this movie is. Everywhere you look your eye is drawn to strange, wild, vivid scenery and the oddest of characters. The images quite overwhelm the story itself. I almost wonder if it wouldn't be just as entertaining if watched with no sound. Or maybe with a Pink Floyd album as a soundtrack . . . ?

Despite the source material, this movie really isn't for kids. Not that there's anything especially inappropriate or scary in it, but my guess is that most kids would prefer the good old Disney animated version over this one.

Did you recognize the Knave of Hearts? I did. (Hello! McFly!)

Diary of a Wimpy Kid 2: Rodrick Rules

The kids and I went to see this movie nearly two weeks ago. Obviously I didn't find myself with much to say about it, if it's taken me this long to write a post. It was cute, stuck with the spirit of the book, and my kids enjoyed it. If you don't have kids, skip it.

But there are two things I remember from this movie:

1. During the previews, I saw that they are making a movie from Mr Popper's Penguins! I loved that book when I was little.

2. I can't believe I dropped $44 just to take my kids to the movie theater. What made it *really* painful is that I had to go to the gas station in the same weekend. I may have to take out a loan for our next trip to the cinema.

I Am Number Four

OK, so this movie was pretty corny. I kind of can't believe I went to see it in the theater. It's just a bunch of pretty people, some of whom are apparently highly-developed alien lightning bugs with flashlights in their palms, being chased by weird-faced shark people and their pair of flying-squirrel-dinosaurs they keep locked in a shipping container on the back of an eighteen-wheeler.

I blame Hud. He picked the movie. Well, it was one of two I offered to him. It looked like either this one or Unknown would be the only two that would fall into the overlap of our Movie Appreciation Venn Diagram circles. We should have picked Unknown.

The last 20 minutes, an action sequence that results in total destruction of the high school, were pretty decent. I know Hud enjoyed that part. But it didn't quite make up for the other 84 minutes.

Yeah. And there's going to be a sequel.

Dog Day Afternoon

I guess if I'm going to have a movie blog it helps if I watch movies. I've had this one out from netflix for nearly two months. Somewhere in America someone is cussing me for keeping them from watching it for so long.

Well, they can have it. I guess it wasn't awful, but it's not one I'll be watching over and over again. I mean, it's no Clueless. Plus, I'm not used to movies where the only song is played during the opening credits.

It really was based on actual events, though. That's something. I hate it when a movie (or a book) tells you it's about something that really happened, but it's lying. I'm looking at you, Bridges of Madison County.

At least it had some kind of funny parts, like this one:

"Is there any special country you want to go to?"

"Wyoming."

When in Rome

This movie was every bit as stupid as I expected it to be, but I will admit I laughed out loud a few times. ("What are you doing in my apartment?" "Blowing your mind!" No? Guess you had to be there.) And I really liked seeing the scenery in Rome again (although it would have been nice to see more than, say, thirty seconds of it). And I enjoyed Pedro's cameo as Juan. But, other than that, yeah--it was just stupid.

I'm not really sure what compelled me to watch this movie (I swear it wasn't Josh Duhamel. Really!) but at least now I've gotten it out of my system.

New in Town

My friend Carole told me this movie was really cute. Now, Carole and I are about as different as tapioca and crème brûlée (no, I won't tell you who is who), so I wasn't really sure whether I believed her or not. But it turns out she was right. This movie was cute! As is Harry Connick, Jr, of course, even though he left his shirt on AND had a fuzzy little beard throughout the entire movie. Total chick flick, to be sure, but it made me smile. I give it two thumbs up, but you probably shouldn't bother trying to get your husband to watch it with you.

Peaceful Warrior

This is another one of Those Movies: I have absolutely no recollection of how it got in my netflix queue (did I really put it there?) and I've been utterly uninspired to watch it. In fact, I've had it since mid-December and hadn't even considered watching it until tonight when I decided it was finally time to watch the freakin' thing so I could return it.

The menu looked very Lifetime Original Movie. Not good. But then the movie started off with a pretty freaky dream sequence, and I perked up a little bit. All in all, however, the majority of the movie turned out to be slanted towards cheesy family drama, though there were a few weird moments that I liked. And male gymnasts. In slow motion. So it wasn't all bad.

At least I figured out why I picked this movie (I think). It's because Amy Smart was in it. I really liked her in that stupid movie Rat Race, and ever since I saw that I've wanted to see her in something else. Well, I saw her in The Butterfly Effect and it just wasn't quite the same; and in Crank, where her role was pretty unimpressive except for her hiccup scene (which I bet was accidental, but it worked well so they kept it). She didn't have a very big part in this one, though.

Inception

I watched this movie nearly two weeks ago. Normally I don't take so long to blog about a movie, but then normally I don't come out of one with so many questions.

I didn't realize I had so many questions right at first. I was actually surprised (judging by what I'd previously heard) that the movie wasn't especially hard to follow, and it all seemed to make sense to me. I would have blogged about it the night I watched it except that we'd already stayed up way too late and I was incredibly tired. But in the days since then, I found I wanted to do a bunch of googling before I wrote this post.

Oh, by the way, did I mention I thought this movie was awesome? It's right up there with The Matrix (first one only!!) in its mindblowing combination of WTFery and action/effects. It's a great story in a great package. I would totally watch it again, and that's saying a lot coming from someone with a neverending list of movies to watch.

In fact, judging by my questions, I need to watch this movie again. Most of them, I think, were answered during the movie. I asked Hud what he thought on each of these and he couldn't answer a single one. I don't think he was paying attention. I, on the other hand, was at the edge of my seat and completely focused throughout the entire movie, which is really unusual for me. But I still had the following questions:

What was the secret Mal had hidden away? I forgot . . . was it that she believed their world (in limbo) was real? What was the little thing she locked in her safe to symbolize this?

I didn't understand why Cobb's father(-in-law?) was first in Paris, then the US. Does he live in Paris and just happened to be visiting his grandkids when Cobb finally got back home?

How long was Cobb gone--why did it look like his kids hadn't aged? I actually think I know the answer to this one. Apparently they used two different sets of kids during filming--one pair older, one younger--so they were supposed to have looked like they aged. I just didn't notice it.

How did Cobb and Mal get lost in limbo for so long? Looking back (and if my answer to my first question is right) it must be because for a long time she didn't realize it wasn't real.

Why didn't Cobb want to see his kids' faces in limbo? He deliberately turned away so that he wouldn't.

Why did the van hitting the water not wake them up in the plane? (I think I know the answer to this one too--it was because of the sedation.)

Then, of course, there's the big question: Do YOU think the top toppled? I was actually expecting that ending, but I was not expecting the ambiguity. I thought the movie would end with a smoothly spinning top that never dropped. Anyway, I say it wobbled, so it was going to fall.

As for my poor friend who called this movie bizarre and said she was disappointed in it, I pity her. If such a movie can be a letdown, her life must be rife with dissatisfaction. That must suck.

RED

This movie was awesome. It's like Ocean's 11, right down to the soundtrack, except with spies instead of thieves. Well, retired spies. And, regrettably, without Brad Pitt. But Bruce Willis is a pretty good replacement. I can't believe Demi Moore didn't want to be married to him anymore. Ashton Kutcher just doesn't compare.

Wanna get pancakes?

The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus

I put this movie in my netflix queue quite a while ago. It looked weird, and weird is good. But I didn't realize until I finally sat down to watch it that it has what could have been the perfect storm of hotness: Heath Ledger, Johnny Depp, Jude Law AND Colin Farrell. I mean, none of them are in my top five, but they're all awfully pretty. And I thought surely there would be some sort of synergy going on.

This movie was a crazy trip. Not as much of the hotness as I pictured, since the four hotties never shared the screen, and hotness was really not of paramount importance in their roles. And maybe Hud was right in saying that this movie is probably best enjoyed with large quantities of alcohol and weed.

Dr. Parnassus and his small band of sidekicks run a traveling sideshow featuring a magic mirror. Whoever enters the mirror goes on a journey into the imagination. Throw in a deal with the devil on a deadline, and you've got yourself some weird, wild stuff.

Salt

Finally, a movie Hud and I could both enjoy. Of course it wasn't as great as Inception (which I still need to blog about . . . I'm just not quite ready yet) but it was good enough. Action--maybe far-fetched, but fun; plot twists, not all of which I saw coming; lots of gunfire, to appease Hud; and though there were a few lines that kind of sucked, the entire movie wasn't full of them.

It's not my favorite Angelina Jolie movie (that would be Mr. and Mrs. Smith), but she's been in quite a few stinkers, so this is one of her better ones. Fun! You should try it. With popcorn.

WhiteOut

WhiteOut is what happens when Hud sends me to the Redbox and I try to find something we'll both like. I unintentionally end up with the eighth worst movie of 2009.

In my defense, the Redbox description didn't sound so bad. It described a "shocking mystery" (good, right?) with Kate Beckinsale "racing to solve it" (fast-paced, right?) OK, so I'd never heard of the movie, but that doesn't automatically have to mean it would be horrible.

Unfortunately, this movie is not just a murder mystery. It's a slasher film. Who would have ever thought to set a slasher film in Antarctica?

I just don't care for slasher flicks. Scream was OK, I guess, but that's the only one I'll admit to liking. So, not only do I dislike the genre, but the predictability of this one was just abysmal. The dialogue was so clichéd that Hud and I could quote nearly every line before we heard it. I even guessed what the Russians were smuggling long before it was revealed. (Hours before? Seemed like days.)

Man. Stay away from this one.

Maya Deren: Experimental Films

What? I don't get it.

This is a bizarre series of short films: Meshes of the Afternoon, At Land, A Study in Choreography for Camera, Ritual in Transfigured Time, Meditation on Violence, and The Very Eye of Night. Most of them were filmed in the 1940s (the last one in the 50s). They're all in black & white, and there is no speaking in any of the six films; half are silent, the other half are set to music.

I feel like I have nothing intelligent to say about these films. Most of them concentrated on the beauty of dance-like movements, but I couldn't discern much in the way of plot or anything that might make sense.

The most interesting one was the first, Meshes of the Afternoon. It also came closest to having a plot, but I'm still not quite sure what happened. Dreams? Hallucinations? Death? All three?

I just thought Godard's films were inexplicable.

The Pope of Greenwich Village

Meh. This movie is kind of in that no man's land between a great movie (which I can rave about) and a sucky one (which I can rip on). I can't remember where I heard of it--was it mentioned in that Reel Culture book? I know it wasn't listed as one of the 50 greatest, but it may have come up in that book anyway.

So. I don't have strong feelings about this movie. I probably wouldn't watch it again. Not many quotable quotes, unless you count "Charlie, they took my thumb!" and when am I ever going to get to use that one? No one especially hot in this movie, although Daryl Hannah was looking pretty trim in her 80s aerobics instructor way, and Mickey Rourke wasn't too bad at that age--but it's ruined by the knowledge of how scary-looking he is now (see The Expendables. Or don't, actually. I'll just show you a picture of what he looked like in that one.)

He certainly hasn't aged like Sean Connery

The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader

I've been waiting to see this movie for so long . . . about twenty-eight years, I'd guess. I would have gone to the theater weeks ago, except Hud was doing this weird passive-aggressive thing where he didn't want me to go see the movie without him, but he really didn't want to go see the movie. So I finally went by myself on the way home from work yesterday.

Side note: why do people pity me for going to see a movie by myself? I ran into Hud's cousin in the popcorn line, and he acted so sorry for me when he heard I was there alone. It's not like I don't have friends and family. (In that case, I would be pitiable.) Going to a movie alone is actually quite nice. Although I would have preferred a slightly less crowded theater where I wouldn't have had to fight strangers for armrests.

Anyway. About the movie. I know I'm a big fat Narnia nerd, but I got all choked up just seeing the Dawn Treader come to life up there on the big screen. It was absolutely perfect. Every tiny last detail of it.

As far as being true to the book, the ship was just about the only thing that was perfect. I could probably go on and on and on about the changes they made for the movie, as they were legion, but I'll just mention the ones that disappointed me the most.

First, the lack of surprise when Lucy and Caspian recognized each other, as if it were an everyday occurrence. Their greeting was almost as mundane as, "Oh, it's you, how nice." This struck me like the beginning of the second movie when they glossed over one of my favorite parts. ("I wonder who used to live here? I think we did!")

Second, there were a few lines from the book I really wished they'd used in the movie. Of course now the only one that comes to mind was when Eustace wandered off on Dragon Island. No matter how hard I willed it, I could not get Edmund to say, "Where's that blighter Eustace?"

Finally, while it was a nice lead-in to the next movie when Jill Pole was mentioned at the end of this one (and to be honest it gave me a thrill to hear her name), it's hard to believe she would have been friendly enough with pre-transformation Eustace to stop by his house.

I am torn between horror at the bastardization of the book and a grudging concession that they actually improved upon the storyline. The book always was just a long string of adventures, one after another, but the movie added more of a driving force (the evil green mist) and wove the different parts of the story together more tightly than the way they're found in the book.

I wrestled with this movie because it wasn't exactly like the book, but if I could look at the movie as its own entity I would have to admit they did a beautiful job with it. Everything in the movie looked wonderful, and the story was thrilling and exciting. Eustace was so perfectly, appallingly Eustace-like. And I loved how they used the old Pauline Baynes illustrations from the book during the credits at the end.

I had to see this movie in 3D because I waited too long and they're no longer showing it in 2D (which I tend to prefer, because I'm a cheapskate and I am convinced that 3D movies are just a ploy to milk more money from the moviegoing public). It's my opinion that the third dimension didn't add much to this movie. I mean, sure, it looked great, but beyond the uncomfortable granny glasses, I usually forgot to even notice the extra depth. But I finally got to see the movie, and that's what counts.

And . . . The Silver Chair is supposed to come out sometime this year! I can't wait!!