The One About Movies

I've been there and back...I went to Columbus, Ohio in June for TNNA. It was fun, and I only took one picture, but I will not share it in this post. I also went to Colorado last week and it was nice...then came back to the heat. I need a nap! All the time! The heat just wears me out.

Oh - if on June 27th, y'all happened to have seen the sunbeams coming through the clouds and heard the collective voices of angels singing, "Ahhhhhhhh," it was because I finished the June 2008 socks. They are cute, and pictures in the knitting post. This one is about movies.

It's not really movie season for me...I tend to gear up after that back-to-school time of year starts, but there are quite a few DVDs on my Blockbuster list, and I have been trying to work through it.

I did see one movie at the theater last week, with some of the mothers of the boys who received those hats that I made: In The Proposal, Sandra Bullock plays a hard-driving boss who happens to be a Canadian citizen with an expired visa. Ryan Reynolds plays her executive assistant, who happens to be the unlucky guy she picks in which to enter into a marriage of convenience in order to avoid deportation – mostly because he just happened to be standing there. Betty White, Mary Steenburgen and Craig T. Nelson also star. It is definitely a chick flick and the funniest one I’ve seen in a while. Definitely a must see.

The DVDs:
In Mama’s Boy, Jon Heder plays a guy whose father died when he was a young teen. He is now in his late twenties, and is still living at home looking out for his mama (Diane Keeton). Mama is more than ready to move on with her life, and starts dating a nice man (Jeff Daniels). Baby boy is not too pleased…Cute movie.

In The Walker, Woody Harrelson plays Carter Page, an overly gay son of a former senator who earns his way by escorting Washington’s grand dames around town when they need a date. One of his ladies (Kristen Scott Thomas) finds her lover murdered in his home, and Carter does what he can to protect her and her husband from any media investigation. If the plot sounds a little like American Gigolo, it’s because both movies were written by the same person.

In The Other Boleyn Girl, Scarlett Johanssen and Natalie Portman play the Boleyn sisters, who compete for the attentions of King Henry VIII (Eric Bana) to ensure their family’s place in the royal hierarchy. It was pretty good. I liked the costumes, too.

In The Hunting Party, Richard Gere plays a reporter and Terrence Howard plays a photographer who covered the war in Bosnia. Years later, Gere hatches a plan to capture Bosnia’s most wanted war criminal. It was a good movie.

Phoebe in Wonderland is about mental illness. Felicity Huffman and her husband are writers who have two imaginative daughters. The oldest one (Elle Fanning – Dakota’s little sister) exhibits bizarre behavior that concerns her mother, as well as her drama teacher (Patricia Clarkson). It is a really good movie that captures the struggle of dealing with a mentally ill family member. That Elle Fanning is a good little actress, and Patricia Clarkson was wonderful as always.

In Smart People, Dennis Quaid and Sarah Jessica Parker play a widowed professor who starts dating his former student. They meet again after he is involved in an accident and she is his emergency department physician. His adopted brother, a rather ne’er-do-well (played by Thomas Haden Church) enters the picture when Quaid’s daughter calls him in to help with the carpooling. The daughter (Ellen Page) is quite academically bright, but rather lacking in the friends and fun department. It was pretty good.

Helen Hunt wrote, directed and stars in Then She Found Me, about a woman in her late thirties who wants to have a baby desperately. She was adopted and has a brother who is the biological child of her parents and doesn’t want to adopt. After a series of life changing events, her birth mother (Bette Midler) comes looking for her. It was pretty good.

Stay cool.

MK out.