A Prairie Home Companion (2006)

Plot: A look at what goes on backstage during the last broadcast of America's most celebrated radio show, where singing cowboys Dusty and Lefty, a country music siren, and a host of others hold court.

Ebert and Roeper were right. You will react to this like you react to the show. At least I did. Which meant that although there was a moment or two which made me smile, overall it made me just scratch my head and go, "Huh? I don't think I get it." I wasn't fond of the juxtaposition between the quasireality (if overexaggerated) and the complete fantasy of the Kevin Kline character. I really, really didn't get all that nonsense with Virginia Madsen's character. And I was as confused as anyone could possibly be with the ending. The movie ended and I thought, "I must have missed something." However, as I said, that's pretty much my reaction to the radio show, too. So if you can get into the humor of the radio show, go for it. If you can't... don't bother. 1.5 stars.

Harold and Maude (1971)

Wow. This has got to be the blackest comedy I have ever seen in my life. It actually left me somewhat depressed... and because of that, I can't rate it all that highly, nor can I think of many people I would actually recommend it to. Even in its humor it is unbelievably bleak, and although the ending is supposed to be less bleak, it just made me go, "Er. Okay." I had expected to like this a lot more than I did, I hadn't counted on the feel of it dragging me down quite as much as it did. 2.5 stars.

Paradise Now (2005)

The story is that of two young Palestinian men who are chosen to be suicide bombers. It would have been just very uninteresting if it had been entirely political: "This is why suicide bombing is wrong." But it's about so much more than that. Both sides of the story are given, and are interestingly done. There's the frustrated daughter of a martyr, who is convinced this isn't the way to go about it, and it's shown that she's probably right. But we also are sympathetic toward the two men who feel death is the only way to respond to oppressors.

The thing is, though, although the movie was indeed done very well, I really didn't feel much of personal connection to the characters, or much of an interest - until the very end. The last 15 minutes made sense and a sort of tragic beauty out of the entire rest of the movie. Now that was interesting. 3 stars.

The Life of David Gale (2003)

This was a "Yay-Wait-What" movie. As in, I finished the movie, went "Yay!" then thought about it, went, "Wait..." and then my final thought was: "Whaaat?" It's a political statement movie meets mystery thriller, except when you step back and look at them as a whole, neither aspect makes any sense, given what the movie gives us.

The story is of a man on death row who gives a set of interviews to a journalist. The journalist then sets out to prove he's innocent. Pretty straightforward. Except then it throws in a *lot* of political jargon about the death penalty (which doesn't make sense when connected with the ending) and a few twists (which don't make sense when connected with, say, the plot). It would have done better to focus on either the mystery or the message, because when they combined the two of them together, we got sort of a jumbled mess.

The difficulty is, though, that despite none of this hanging together, and despite their clearly not being quite sure on what their message *is*, I actually LIKED this movie fairly well. Heh. It wasn't until I actually sat down and started thinking about it that I realized it was nonsense. I can't actually recommend it as a fluff movie, though, because it's an unpleasant subject for a fluff movie. Oh, well. I liked it, but realize it wasn't good. How's that? 3 stars.

Looking For Comedy in the Muslim World (2005)

From what a friend of mine said about it, I thought it was a documentary, which it certainly was not. But I figured that out pretty quickly, and was able to just sit back and enjoy the movie. I really enjoyed the first 45 minutes or so, and only relatively enjoyed the last 45. It started getting just a little bit too silly and over-the-top for me to really enjoy it. Plus a few of the seemingly random dramatic moments (what was up with the assistant and her boyfriend? That was not particularly funny nor necessary to the plot) made me just wonder what on earth was suppoesd to be going on. There weren't very many laugh-out-loud moments, but throughout at least the first half of the movie I kept smiling. Too bad they couldn't have kept up the tone. 3.5 stars.

Life As a House (2001)

Normally, I wouldn't have watched this movie. It had too many opportunities for things to be silly and sappy, and I'm not a Hayden Christensen fan. But Anna recommended it to me, which meant I was either going to love it or hate it. :-) I leaned much closer to the "love" side. Although I wouldn't rave about it, I thought it was a very interesting movie. The few moments that were mildly silly were saved by the actors' performances. Both Kevin Kline and Hayden Christensen are superb in this, and although the drama was perhaps packed in a little too thickly at times, it still managed to come together into a very satisfying movie at the end. Another thumbs up for Anna's recommendations! 4 stars.

Liar Liar (1997)

I have to admit, out of all the "known to be annoying" comic actors, I like Jim Carrey the best (and Adam Sandler the least, but that's beside the point). He's good at what he does, even when he's not my style, and occasionally makes me giggle at things I wouldn't find funny if anyone else did them. He also has a good-natured air about him that most other comic actors lack. He actually has the ability to come off as a genuinely nice guy. (Back to Adam Sandler - even when he plays a supposedly nice people, I still want to shoot him.)

And therefore, this was not at all a bad movie. The premise is one of those that can, in the right hands, be hilarious, and in the wrong ones, horrendous. The screenwriters handle it just perfectly, with outrageous nonsense in nice proportion with the subtle humor and the sentimental plotline.

In conclusion... I liked this movie much more than I thought I was going to. I actually did laugh out loud a few times. That's pretty good. 4 stars.