We were able to procure not one but TWO babysitters for the weekend, so we went to our second and third movies of the year. (You have a kid and suddenly you're not going out on Saturdays to see movies.)
Movie one: Vanity Fair. Take a 900 page book. Make a two hour movie out of it. How do you do it? You rip out 70% of the plot and make the movie a super-majority of Becky Sharpe, then elide over all the context. It's an absolute muddle of characters and plot. It does have some nice Bollywood dance numbers, though. This is a book that should be a 6-8 hour miniseries, not a 2 hour Cliff's Notes of a movie.
Movie two: Garden State. It really felt like a different place and age for me. It's where I was six or seven years ago, when I was 25 or 26. Now, though, I don't feel the kind of angst and emotional flatlining Zach Braff's character does. I have completely different angsts. So, where Samantha thinks it's the bee's knees, I think it's OK but feels more like Gen Y's movie about growing up, and I, unfortunately, am not Gen Y.
But then there's Natalie Portman. Wow. Her acting is effortless. If she doesn't have an Oscar by the time this decade is over, either something tragic happened to her or the Academy set a high-water mark for stupidity. Her acting makes this movie lovable. You're sitting there thinking, "She's playing the exact same character she played in Beautiful Girls," and then it sets in that she's legal and she has matured.
There are some damn funny lines in the movie that aren't repeatable on this family blog. Oh, and the ending was tacked on, and I didn't like it, but that's because I'll be 32 in 12 days and feel old and curdmugeonly.
Comments
-
Someday, I hope to have it together enough to be able to switch out my angsts. Right now, I have enough trouble finding matching socks.
Also, I think it should always be noted that Natalie Portman's character is named -samantha-. This is important.
Posted by: samantha | September 7, 2004 08:46 PM
-
I wish I would get more pictures of my beautiful granddaughter!!
Love you,
MOM
Posted by: MOM | September 8, 2004 12:29 PM
