Diary of a Wimpy Kid

I'm a nerd, and I have read this book. The series is one of my son's favorites. In fact, I'm pretty sure that before he discovered this book (ahem! I discovered it for him) he hated to read. Now he at least loves to read about Greg Heffley, and he has also been enjoying my old Calvin and Hobbes books. But I digress.

Of course we marked this movie on the calendar as soon as we heard it was coming out, but as this is 1) a book adaptation and 2) made for kids, I was afraid it might suck. I was sure there would be enough bathroom humor and gross-outs to keep my ten-year-old rolling in the aisles (and there was . . . except, of course, I managed to keep him from literally rolling on the floor because you know how sticky those movie theater floors can get). But I am happy to report that I actually enjoyed the movie. It was much cuter than I expected. My literary amnesia keeps me from telling you how faithful the movie is to the book (c'mon, it's been more than a year since I read it) but it has all the right characters and features the Cheese Touch, so I'm guessing it follows the book pretty well. Now, I will say that if you don't have kids to bring with you, you will probably want to skip this one. It's not great date-night material. At least wait until it comes out on DVD. But I think any kid above the age of 3 will love it, especially if they've read the books.

Little Ashes

I've seen Robert Pattinson kissing a dude. I may never think of him the same way again.

I was a little disappointed that this movie didn't touch on Dalí's art much. We get to see a few of his paintings (very few), hear him call himself a genius several times, and watch him coat himself in black paint, but that was about it as far as the art went.

She's Having a Baby

This is a very, very 80s movie. And I'm sorry to say it's not John Hughes' best work. I think the silly treatment that worked so well in his teen movies doesn't fit this more grown-up fare.

The title of the movie is a bit misleading. Sure, pregnancy came up during the movie, but it was just, like, during the last five seconds or something. This movie was more about the trials of adjusting to the early years of a marriage when the husband is still mostly just a selfish child and hasn't really decided to fully commit yet. And the actual baby-having scene was so shamelessly manipulative that it made me mad. It was like the scene in Fried Green Tomatoes where you think they're having the little boy's funeral, and you start to cry, and then you realize they're just having a funeral for the boy's arm, and you stop crying and get mad instead. But I didn't cry during this movie, so there.

The best part of the movie was the "Famous People of the 80s Give Baby Name Suggestions" bit during the credits, especially since one of the suggestions was "Buford" (but you'd have to know my husband to know why I like this).

Remember Me

Just in case it is not clear enough that I don't make a big effort to avoid spoilers in my posts, you need to know that I don't think I have anything at all to say about this movie that isn't a huge spoiler. Unless it's the small fact that Emilie de Ravin's mouth flaps open too far when she talks, and that's kind of annoying to watch. Or that I was hoping this movie would have an awesome soundtrack, but the only times I even noticed the music, I wasn't blown away. Or (taking a deep breath and hoping my mom never reads this) that what I'd been looking forward to the most was watching Robert Pattinson have sex. Or that this is an excellent movie with a talented group of actors, not one weak link evident, but I don't plan to or want to see this movie again, and I probably won't buy it when it comes out on DVD. Beyond this, we go off the edges of the medieval map (you know, the "Here Be Dragons" thing, except with spoilers).

If anyone had told me ahead of time that Robert Pattinson dies in this movie I wouldn't have been near as excited about seeing it. Here's what I knew going in: Robert Pattinson and Emilie de Ravin are in a relationship that starts after her dad arrests him for fighting. I knew Pattinson's character had a brother who died, de Ravin also had her own family tragedy to contend with, 9/11 was involved somehow, and the end was heart-wrenching. I took these puzzle pieces and put them together the wrong way; I assumed Pattinson's brother died in 9/11, perhaps de Ravin's relative too, and I really thought the entire movie took place after 9/11. I was wrong about all of that. If you've seen the movie you know the right way to put the pieces together; if you haven't, all you need to know is that 9/11 is the end of the movie. I think it's really unfair to throw people into that tragedy with no warning. I couldn't help but think of my high school friend Greg whose older brother died on 9/11, and what if Greg goes to this movie having no idea about how it ends? How horrible that would be, to have to relive that in the movie theater with no prior warning.

I have to say that I think everyone over-reacted to Caroline's haircutting debacle. Maybe this was purposeful, made to contrast with the true tragedy of 9/11, but even if it hadn't been immediately followed by 9/11 it would have seemed rather trivial. Yes, the girls were mean to Caroline, but to have family members and visitors hugging and whispering, "How's she doing?" as if someone had died was a little bit of overkill. Plus, I'm sure somewhere in New York City they could have found a hair remedy that didn't make Caroline look like a little old lady.

I don't know if this will be a common viewing perception, or even if this was the intended result, but once 9/11 happened, it was no longer about Tyler and his family for me. All of a sudden they were pretty much insignificant. It became much bigger than their little dysfunctional family with their petty squabbles. I didn't actually cry in the movie theater, but I did have to tilt my head back so that the tears would run down the back of my throat instead of down my cheeks.

By the way, it's not just the ending that's heart-wrenching. The beginning is pretty heart-wrenching too.

Knowing

This is a movie with multiple personality disorder. For the first hour, it is the puzzling mystery that I expected, all perfectly sane and normal, even while slightly worrisome. The next half hour upped the creep factor until it nearly became a horror movie, mainly based on sneaking around in the old rickety abandoned trailer where the crazy lady was found dead years ago, and not made any more comforting by the weird albino trench-coat-wearing guys stalking the children. I was officially creeped out and more than once found myself turning around to make sure I was still alone.

Then came the last half hour, with a logic-defying leap that reminded me of the episode of Friends where Joey is acting in a play as a guy named Victor who has been perfectly ordinary until the spaceship comes down to take him to Blargon 7. All of a sudden the movie has lost its grip on reality and is just plain surreal, with Adam and Eve--I mean, Caleb and Abby--running through a field of alien wheat towards what can only be the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, unless maybe it was the Na'vi Tree of Souls . . . yeah, it's weird. But definitely not boring.

2012

This is a really, really long movie. I'm pretty sure it's at least twice as long as it needed to be. What it boils down to is an elaborate version of that old game of ethics, Lifeboat, and that shouldn't take dang near three hours to play.

I need to start with the "escape from Pasadena in a limo" scene, which was so far-fetched that, rather than biting my nails through it, I was laughing. It wasn't so much disbelief at the destruction, but disbelief at the continual narrow escapes through constant peril. Evidently this was the only family to make it out of California alive. It was especially fun to see the limo catching some air. But it was kind of annoying to see these people survive so many desperately dangerous situations time and again. It's not like they were smarter, stronger, or faster than everyone else; they were just very, very lucky. And of course their luck didn't end after they made it out of California--the ultimate example being the emergence of Jackson with a gasping breath from what everyone assumed was his watery grave. Yeah, that's one of those spoilers I warned you about. But right before that moment I literally thought, Oh, come on, they've spent the entire movie priming us for the idea that Jackson will never die. He can't have come this far only to die now. (So he obliged me and reappeared).

I was really disappointed that they didn't play R.E.M.'s song "It's The End Of The World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine)" at all during this movie, not even during the credits. Of course the credits would have been the wrong place for it, as the movie ended on a note of hope and triumph, not doom and despair. (Yup, kind of another spoiler). But would it have killed them to put the song on the radio when Jackson was driving his kids to Yellowstone? Maybe they did and I just missed it.

Layer Cake

This might have been another Guy Ritchie film (and, in fact, this director--Matthew Vaughn--produced several of Ritchie's films). It's yet another British gangsta movie, of course, but a serious one, unlike the somewhat whimsical Snatch or Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, which both had some good laughs.

I like Vaughn's transitions. (I don't know film-making-speak, so that's the best I can do). Two notable examples: first, zooming in on Craig's intense blue eyes as he sat in his apartment trying to figure out what he should do, and zooming out to see he's wearing a ski mask and has a plan; or, going from his drug-and-alcohol-induced frenzy to a straightened-out man in a suit with the swing of a mirrored medicine cabinet door. I also noticed the interesting camera angle when Craig's character was discussing guns with Gene and the scene was shot up through the glass tabletop. But . . . should great filmmaking draw attention to itself?

They obviously didn't consult me when putting together the soundtrack. Not that there was anything wrong with it; it was just not my kind of music. I was not impressed.

Daniel Craig sure has some nice arms. Cool apartment, too, with its unique fire-shaped sculpture in the fireplace.