Adventures in Baby-sitting (1987)

Plot: Chris has a big night out planned when her boyfriend cancels on her. She agrees to babysit for a pre-teen girl and a pubescent boy. She's settled in for a dull night when a girlfriend calls her to say she's marooned at a downtown bus station with very seedy characters around. The three plus one of the boy's friends get into the parents station wagon for a trip to the inner city. All is well till the flat tire.

Heh... good fluff is . . . well, good. (Hmm. There's something wrong with the simplicity of that statement.) This was an entirely fluffy movie but it was well done and had several moments that made me chuckle. The outright absurdity of it was rather delightful. I particularly liked the shot in the bus station at the beginning where the creepy guy keeps grinning at Brenda and showing her he's got a gun. I just started giggling at that point. It was a little over the top in places, but it didn't get too annoying at all. And besides . . . IT'S ANTHONY RAPP! That's him as that obnoxious Darryl kid. Yup, 'at's one of my Voices right there. Honestly, that was why I got this movie. Because I'm obsessed with seeing all my Voices in as many movies as I can. (See also A Beautiful Mind and School of Rock, two other movies I got for the express purpose of seeing a Voice in there.) 3.5 stars.

Hollywood Homicide (2003)

What was up with everyone panning this movie the way they did? I happened to think it was pretty good! I didn't think so at the beginning - it took me a bit to warm up to the characters. (Especially because Josh Hartnett looks like Ashton Kutcher and sounds like Keanu Reeves, two stars of whose acting talents I am not yet convinced. Kind of prejudiced me against his character from the start.) But once it got going I thoroughly enjoyed this goofy little film. A few moments even had me laughing out loud. Good solid fluffy entertainment. 3 stars.

Hitch (2005)

I've seen a plethora of pretty-darn-decent chick flicks in the past year. Either I'm going soft'n'mushy (please, not that!) or I just happen to be seeing all the good ones. This one actually managed to be good-natured and funny and I count absolutely NO obnoxious bits. I wouldn't classify this as the best chick flick of all time (hmm... what movie WOULD get that title? *thinks*), but would I recommend it to people? Sure! And since it's new, people are more likely to see it. Because people are kooky and only see movies made in the last ten years or so. I SCOFF at you people!! :-P Anyway. Enough of that. 2.5 stars.

Five Children and It (2004)

Gosh darn it. How can we mess up this book? Let me count the ways. The original book was charming, the story of five children who find a sand fairy and then get themselves in trouble by accidentally wishing for things they don't really want - like when one of them says in frustration about their baby brother, "Oh, I WISH he'd grow up!" and suddenly find themselves having to follow their 20-year-old "baby brother" around. Now that kind of stuff was fun. It is not nearly so fun when people are just stupid and wish for idiotic things. Or when those who grant the wishes deliberately skew them. Add in some random troubled-child-misses-his-father bits, a cast of mostly superfluous characters, and a sappy ending that also just doesn't make SENSE... and you've got something that rather deserves to die. 0.5 stars.

Donnie Darko (2001)

May I start off by saying that that rabbit is the SINGLE SCARIEST IMAGE I HAVE EVER SEEN IN MY LIFE. I think I'm going to have nightmares forever from that thing. *shudder* Okay. On to the actual movie. Talk about confusing. I had sort of a vague idea of what was going on but then weird stuff happened and I was like, "Hmm, oh, okay, on second thought, I think this is happening," and then weirder stuff happened and I was like, "Um. Okay. Now I have no clue at all." At the end my dad told me what the official website says happened and, honestly, I have NO IDEA how I was supposed to get that from the movie. However... just because I didn't understand it doesn't mean at all that it wasn't a good movie. I really really liked it. It was entertaining all the way through and I did have fun trying to figure it out even though I didn't come anywhere near it. But let mejust state one more time.... that rabbit is HORRIFYING!!!!!!! Aaaahhhhhh! (My dad pointed out that actually this was the second movie we'd watched this week involving a scary rabbit. The other was Monty Python and the Holy Grail.) 4.5 stars.

Hostage (2005)

The box classified it as "Die Hard meets Panic Room". I haven't seen Die Hard yet, but I can say I liked it significantly less than Panic Room. HOWEVER. This by no means means (ooh, "means means") it was a bad movie. It was just less interesting than Panic Room. It still made for fun mindless action viewing. I also was able to amuse myself by predicting how things would work out. (It wasn't entirely formula, I assure you. I couldn't predict everything right. However I did predict the deaths of two of the villains, as well as ranking them in order of evilness.) 2.5 stars.

An Ideal Husband (1999)

Yay for Oscar Wilde. Honestly. His plays are so delightfully witty. Or, at least this and Earnest are. I've never read any of his others. They might be horribly boring...but somehow I doubt it. While the storyline of this is much more serious and less outrageously funny than Earnest, it was still - really, the only word for it is "delightful" - viewing and one that I'll probably watch again in the future. Thank you, Sarah L., for recommending it to me. I'm eternally in your debt. Or something. 4 stars.