I started a blog for Gone Baby Gone a few weeks ago but stopped because I realized that I didn’t really want to do a review about it.  I didn’t want to tell you bits and pieces to intrigue you to see it.  I wanted to have a commentary on it, and when I read this article today about a severely neglected and abused child, I knew that was what I had to do.  The article may be long, but I IMPLORE you to read it.

There are so many thoughts - most of them of outrage - racing through my head right now, so it’s hard to know where to begin.  I guess I’ll start with the movie’s storyline so that you can see why I drew the parallel with the article.

Casey Affleck stars as Patrick Kenzie, a born and bred Boston private investigator.  He and his girlfriend, played by Michelle Monaghan from Made of Honor and Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, are hired to search for a missing girl.  Morgan Freeman plays Captain Jack Doyle.  He lost his daughter many years before in a similar situation, and has since devoted his law enforcement career to keeping other parents from ever having to experience such a tragedy.

The little girl doesn’t exactly live in one of Boston’s best neighborhoods, and the mother’s pleas for help on local television newscasts seem a little disingenuous.  So Doyle tells detectives Bressant (Ed Harris) and Poole (John Ashton) to collaborate with Kenzie and Gennaro (Monaghan).  Evidence leads the investigators to believe that one of the local drug dealers has taken Amanda hostage because Amanda’s mother has stolen money from him.  During a botched attempt to retrieve the young girl, she falls over a cliff and drowns in the water below.

Kenzie and Gennaro are haunted by the case.  I saw the film several months ago in a fever-induced haze, so the details are a little fuzzy, but something leads Kenzie to continue digging until he discovers that Amanda is still alive and well.  She didn’t drown, and she wasn’t kidnapped by a drug lord or a sick pedophile.  Her uncle, who - along with his wife - hired Kenzie and Gennaro, worked in conjunction with Bressant and Doyle to take Amanda away from what they felt was an unhealthy atmosphere for a child.

While Amanda’s mother has been grieving (I type with a sneer) for her dead daughter, Amanda’s been thriving in a loving, caring environment with Captain Doyle and his wife.  Kenzie is determined to return Amanda to her rightful place, but Gennaro tells him that if he does, she’ll leave him.

Ultimately, Kenzie goes with his law-abiding conscience and turns in Doyle, Bressant and Amanda’s uncle.  Amanda is returned to her mother’s care (yet again, I type with a sneer), and the last scene of the film shows Kenzie staying home to babysit Amanda as her mother leaves for a date with a guy who contacted her because of the whole kidnapping charade.  Everything is as it was.  Amanda’s disappearance didn’t do a thing to change her mother’s attitude about child care.

Here’s the rub.  I can see Kenzie’s point of view.  I can see that it’s not right for someone to play judge, jury and executioner and decide what conditions are appropriate for a child. That’s what social services and child advocates are meant to do, BUT when, as in the case of the aforementioned article, complaints are made and nothing is done by those sworn to protect and serve, what other recourse is there?  How many children have to be left for 7 YEARS huddled in their own urine and feces and covered with roaches and lice before someone will notice that the system isn’t working?

As the movie ended, I sat there balling.  My friend said I was too sensitive and that I was taking it too seriously.  After all, it’s “just a movie.”  But I was imagining that there are children all over the world, maybe even right next door to me, who endure this sort of existence, and it breaks my heart.  Then I read an article like The Girl In The Window and struggle with comprehending just how badly poor Danielle was abused, and in the same article, read about her mother saying that, “The boys were with her,” and that she has the paperwork to prove it and that that makes it all ok.  Are you kidding me?  It’s like reading a Holocaust survivor’s memoir and then having a White Supremacist look you in the eye and say that it never happened.

What’s the answer?  What’s the solution? As I mentioned before, there are government agencies whose sole purpose is to work toward eliminating these situations and others which are charged with protecting those involved if the situation couldn’t be avoided.  I think it’s disgustingly deplorable that a human being could be treated in such a fashion, but obviously those who would lie around in squalor and later excuse their actions or try to blame someone else, are mentally ill.

Has it always been this way, and we just didn’t know about it because communication and news dissemination was never this efficient or widespread?  I have no answers.  I’m left simply with the hope that there are more people like Danielle’s adoptive family in this world than there are like Danielle’s birth mother.

I’d like to say that The Dark Knight picks up where Batman Begins left off, mainly because it just sounds cool, but I don’t really remember a lot of Batman Begins.  I enjoyed it, but I only saw it once, and it wasn’t one that I felt like I needed to add to my collection.  So for artistic sake, we’ll just say that it picks up where it left off, k? K.

Christian Bale reprises the role of multi-billionaire Bruce Wayne, a.k.a. Batman.  This time around the Joker is his arch nemesis, which the amazing Gary Oldman as Lieutenant Jim Gordon alluded to at the end of Batman Begins.  The story line goes a little something like this:  Batman, Gordon and Gotham City’s new District Attorney Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart) are successfully ridding Gotham of some of the city’s worst criminals; until the psychopathic Joker (Ledger) comes along and spoils their plans.

No story would be complete without the love angle, and this one’s actually got a tri”angle.”  Maggie Gyllenhaal takes over the role of Rachel Dawes from Katie Holmes, and Dent is just as determined to win her heart as he is to defeat the Joker and make Gotham City a respectable place to live.  Of course, Bruce still hopes that one day he can put the Batman suit away, and he and Rachel can live happily ever after in Wayne Tower, surveying the city they helped to make livable.

But do you really care about the story line in a film like this?  Sure it has to have a believable plot to follow or it flounders, but for the most part, it plays third or fourth fiddle to the special effects, the characters and the performances, which I suppose wouldn’t be nearly as fantastic without decent material from which to work.

All three (special effects, characters and performances) are tremendous in The Dark Knight.  Bale’s Batman voice can be a little off-putting, but he’s got to fool everyone somehow because that gigantic bat mask covering the top half of his face just isn’t enough, right? Oldman is brilliant in anything, and Gyllenhaal and Eckhart turn in solid performances.  But the real shining light is Ledger, and I’m not just saying that because he’s dead.  He was awe-inspiring.  It takes a lot to be super-creepy and humorous at the same time, and he pulled it off.  It saddens me that he won’t be around to reprise his role in the next film.

I can’t say enough about the special effects.  The bat gadgets are just plain fun, and there’s one chase sequence that left me breathless.  It’s definitely one of the more innovative ones I’ve seen, and the make-up, especially for Dent as he begins to transition into the villain Two Face, is a little too believable.

My favorite thing about the new evolution of Batman: it doesn’t feel like a movie about a comic book.  It feels real.  I feel like Gotham City actually exists.  The Tim Burton and Joel Schumacher renditions were entertaining and amusing, but Christopher Nolan’s creations are staggering.  These are the sorts of timeless films that we’ll be showing our children in 10 to 15 years, and I think they’ll be every bit as mesmerizing then as they are now.

I do apologize for taking so long to blog about this one, but I tend to be a champion of the lesser-known films about which you’ve probably never heard.  The Dark Knight was at the top of the box office for four weeks.  The first weekend it pulled in a walloping $158,411,483.  It’s safe to say that you’ve heard of it, and now you officially have my permission to see it.

There might be extenuating circumstances, i.e. going through an existential crisis that makes one question the last 2, possibly 3, years of one’s life, but that’s a different blog for a different website.  Even if there is some sort of existential crisis, one would think that I would use movies to escape, and, therefore, have ample fodder from which to blog.  On the contrary, I can’t seem to motivate myself to devote the 2 to 2.5 hours required for a movie. It’s much easier to turn on the equally trusty DVR and lose myself in a pointless, thoughtless hour long drama in which nothing of consequence really happens.

Most of what I’ve seen recently is too forgettable to deserve a blog.  I finally saw Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events. I’m pretty sure it got horrible reviews because it didn’t live up to the epic proportions of the Harry Potter adaptations, but I enjoyed the semi-tragic tale of the 3 children who were orphaned when their house mysteriously exploded with their parents inside.

Jim Carrey as the evil, money-grubbing “uncle” was more than a little annoying, but I love Liam Aiken, who portrayed Klaus, the middle child.  Some of you may remember him as Susan Sarandon’s precious, magic-loving son in Stepmom.  I thought the subtitles for Sunny’s (the little sister) mumblings and baby talk were extremely original, and Jude Law made for a great narrator.  Meryl Streep’s performance was surprising and entertaining, and even though I’d recommend the film, it doesn’t really lend itself to a full length blog.

Neither does Dreamcatcher.  Other than The Shawshank Redemption, I’m pretty sure it’s the only Stephen King adaptation I’ve seen.  My desire to watch it was driven by my opinions of the starring actors.  I’ve liked Damien Lewis ever since I saw him in Band of Brothers, and Timothy Olyphant was mesmerizing in the short-lived Deadwood series on HBO.  Their performances in Dreamcatcher aren’t quite as stellar, but I don’t think the material was either.

I had hoped for something a little more original from the plot than aliens coming to take over the world.  The Ojibwa Native American culture believes that dreamcatchers filter bad dreams from good ones.  The bad ones get stuck in the net of woven sinew, and the good ones fly freely into the dreamer’s unconscious mind.

One would think with a plot device this diverse and unusual that the film would be truly original.  Alas, there is only one reference to the dreamcatcher hanging from the ceiling of the cabin in which the four friends are staying.  Speaking of the four friends, Jonesy, Beaver, Pete and Henry changed their lives forever the day they stumbled upon young Duddits being bullied.  They gained a friend that day, and as the friendship grew, they also gained some interesting abilities.  Is it possible that this retarded boy is more than he seems?  Could he have given them all special powers that will one day save the world?

In addition to the regular routine of life that’s kept me too busy to see any of the latest box office hits, I had a good friend tell me tonight, somewhat tongue in cheek, that I haven’t seen enough movies to really excel in the movie review realm. My pride was a bit wounded.  I like to think of myself as quite the movie connoisseur, and I’ve impressed many friends and acquaintances with my random movie trivia and knowledge.  However, I’ve often said that there’s always someone who’s better at something than you are, and I guess my friend is more of an avid movie fan than I am.  He also has a few extra years on me, but we won’t go into that.

So in the interest of becoming more qualified for this “gig,” I will do my best to devote more time to watching movies.  After all, it is August in Dallas, which means it’ll be over 100 degrees for several days in a row.  What better way to beat the heat than to sit in my comfortable home or in a frigid movie theater and lose myself for a few hours.  I’m FINALLY going to see The Dark Knight this weekend, so even though I’m sure most of you have already seen it, check back next week for my review, unqualified though it may be.

Then I got an invite to a free screening of Brideshead Revisited at the Magnolia. Much more my style AND the email boasted a brief Q&A afterward with the film’s star, Matthew Goode. People, the universe has granted me an early birthday present. It’s no secret that I have quite a few celebrity crushes, and he’s been one since I saw Chasing Liberty in 2004. My inner twelve year old was screaming with glee. I was going to be sharing the same air space with a very cute, very British, very tall boy.

Despite my glee, I was quite calm as the packed theater awaited the beginning of the film. As usual, I hadn’t read the book, and I’d only seen one trailer. I had gotten an Atonement feel from the trailer, but that was mainly due to the era and the undercurrent of class struggle. There’s much more class struggle to this one than to Atonement. The conflict in Atonement was mainly due to a little girl’s huge misunderstanding of very adult “things.” The conflict in Brideshead Revisited is quintessentially British: religion and status.

Goode is the attention-starved Charles Ryder. Charles suffers from a middle class upbringing. His mother died when he was young, and his father is dry and incapable of showing love and affection. When Charles arrives at Oxford to study history, he meets the beguiling Sebastian Flyte and is introduced to a world he thought possible only in his most vivid dreams.

Sebastian (Ben Whishaw) and Charles fill each other’s need for companionship and strike up a quick friendship, but it’s quite obvious that Sebastian would prefer it be less platonic. Although Charles cherishes Sebastian’s company, he is hypnotized by Sebastian’s world. Charles, an aspiring artist, is automatically speechless at the sight of Brideshead, the estate on which Sebastian grew up. His mouth practically waters as he begs Sebastian to let him tour the manor and grounds before the matriarch, Lady Marchmain (played brilliantly by Emma Thompson), returns.

When Lady Marchmain arrives, she brings Julia Flyte (Hayley Atwell), Sebastian’s beautiful sister, and Charles fully succumbs to the spell of Brideshead. He is a good and honest young man, but even the most virtuous of men cannot say no to the display of decadence and eccentricity which Sebastian and Julia provide him.

Every void must be filled, and Lady Marchmain’s saintly adherence to the Catholic faith more than fills the void made by Sebastian’s apparent lack of morality. She is exacting and pious to the extreme, which gives Charles one more thing with which to be fascinated. He soon finds that his lack of faith will be the barrier to his assimilation with the family. While Sebastian may be the black sheep, Julia aptly calls herself the “family’s shadow.” As Sebastian, a truly tortured soul, spins faster and faster into an alcohol induced downward spiral, Julia does her best to do as Mummy and her faith require, and Charles becomes more and more entangled in Lady Marchmain’s web.

The Q&A after the film was a unique experience. While I had viewed Charles as an innocent pawn in a powerful and manipulative world, hearing Matthew talk about the role made me realize that Charles might not be as innocent as I thought. The acting is superb; the scenery is spectacular, and even though it may not live up to the exhaustive TV miniseries from 1981, I found this production so intriguing that I’ve put the book on my “To Read” list, which sits right next to that “To Watch” list I’ve mentioned.

Here’s your moment of shock and awe for the week.  I have not seen the first two Indiana Jones films, and I only remember bits and pieces and Sean Connery (hehe) from the “Last Crusade.”  Might I add that every time I see this card on someecards.com, I chuckle to myself because I’m still secretly hopeful that X-Men: The Last Stand will turn out to be X-Men: The Next to Last Stand.

I’ve heard mixed reviews from friends and acquaintances about The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.  Maybe that’s because it’s a disappointment compared to the other 3 films.  Maybe it’s because 19 years is a long time to wait to revive a character.  I can’t really speak for them, but I can say that it’s currently my favorite of the summer action blockbusters.  Granted I haven’t seen a lot of the typical summer blockbusters.  I think Ironman’s the only one I’ve seen that officially counts, but Wanted, The Incredible Hulk and The Dark Knight are all on my current “To Watch” list.

Even though I hadn’t seen the first two films, and I didn’t remember much from the third one, I was still able to enjoy the fourth installment.  The friend with whom I went had seen the first two, and he recognized and appreciated some references from the previous films, but there wasn’t anything that took away from my understanding.

I’ve never been all gaga over Harrison Ford, so adding Disney’s former “golden child” Shia LaBeouf was a definite plus for me.  I didn’t discover him until I saw The Greatest Game Ever Played a few years ago, but I’ve appreciated his performances ever since.  He plays the cocky 50s greaser type Mutt Williams, and his motorcycle lends itself to one of the more entertaining scenes in the film.

Cate Blanchett isn’t exactly the glowing beauty she sometimes portrays, but she’s definitely proven her versatility with her role as Bob Dylan in last year’s I’m Not There.  She delivered a solid performance as the psychic Ukrainian Col. Dr. Irina Spalko.  Her accent was even convincing, except that she still says Jones like a proper Englishwoman.

Crystal Skull boasts some of the best special effects and fight sequences I’ve seen in awhile, but I think that’s something we’ve all come to expect from Steven Spielberg.  There are plenty of twists and turns, and I was surprised by the central plotline at first, but I guess it became a little predictable toward the end.   Thank god, George Lucas only wrote the story and not the screenplay, so the dialogue rises above simple junior high jargon.  The special effects in the Star Wars films may be amazing, but no amount of techy fluff can cover up a horrible script.

My favorite part of this whole series: Spielberg and Lucas have managed to make a stereotypically “geeky” profession like archaeology infinitely cool.  If I had seen these films when I was younger and before I made my college/career decisions, I can see the young me fashioning myself into the female version of Indy, but I’m more than a little claustrophobic, so maybe not.

As with most sequel-capable films these days, the audience is left with the possibility of more adventures – no riding off into the sunset for Indy and his cohorts this time.  I know that I’ll definitely make time to watch the first three films now.  I’m sure they won’t be as wonder-filled as they would have been if I’d watched them when they were originally released, but I’m sure they’ll still be good entertainment for a few hours.

Ok, so at this point, you’re probably thinking, “Who the heck is Lee Pace?”  Well, he’s only the cutest thing to ever hit the silver screen.  If it’s possible, I’m more enamored with him than Daniel Day Lewis and Hugh Jackman put together.  Yeah, I know; it’s probably hard to believe, but I think it’s got a lot to do with the character he was playing the first time I ever saw him: Ned, the Piemaker, from Pushing Daisies.

I could write an entirely separate blog on how much I love, love, love Pushing Daisies.  If you didn’t catch any of the abbreviated (due to the writer’s strike) first season, I highly recommend you try to pick it up on DVD before the second season starts in the fall.  It’s so original, and some might say sickeningly sweet, but I happen to love getting covered in the ooey gooey goodness every Wednesday night at 7 p.m. on ABC.

Ok, so I suppose that’s enough of my pimping Pushing Daisies, but you have to understand my love for that show and for Ned to understand why I was so excited to see something else in which Lee Pace starred.  He’s just brilliant, and his brilliance shone during The Fall.

The Fall was directed by Tarsem Singh, who also directed The Cell, and according to one other review I read , The Cell had some great visuals with a bad story, but that person thought he’d finally found a decent story to go with his amazing visuals, and I totally agree.

After seeing the trailer, this was one that I knew I had to see in theaters.  I’d had two botched attempts to see it with friends, and as I checked the Magnolia’s website to see if our final attempt was also destined to be foiled, I found that fate was playing a super nasty trick on me.  So I made time to go see it at the absolute last minute, and I’m so glad I did.

Pace plays Roy Walker, a paraplegic in a turn of the 20th century Los Angeles hospital.  Cantinca Untaru plays Alexandria, a little girl at the same hospital who has broken her arm picking oranges in the California orchards where her family works.  Alexandria stumbles into Roy’s room one afternoon, and an odd friendship ensues.  

Roy begins to tell Alexandria a tale of 5 men who have each sworn to kill the evil Governor Odious.  Roy’s soothing Southern drawl is the narration, and Alexandria’s imagination provides the characters.  A scary x-ray technician she saw in the hallway becomes the costume for all Governor Odious’ henchmen.  Roy is the protagonist (naturally), and her favorite nurse, Nurse Evelyn, is his love interest, and all the other characters from Roy’s tale have the faces of people from Alexandria’s life.

The scenery was simply spectacular.  I was moved by each scene.  From the vast orange desert, to the “burning bush,” to the greener pastures, and onto the island palace sanctuary: every location was mesmerizingly beautiful.  It was definitely the most imaginative and original film I’ve seen in awhile…maybe ever.  I was so glad I made the time to see it in a theater; so when you rent it, I highly recommend making arrangements to see it on a high definition or plasma screen TV.

Pace was not a disappointment.  He is an exceptional actor.  Other than his performance on Pushing Daisies, I’ve seen his barely mentionable role in The Good Shepherd, and I saw White Countess, even thought I don’t remember his character at all.  I also saw a little known Showtime movie called Soldier’s Girl, which I will blog about at a later date.  Each performance was as varied as the locations used to shoot The Fall, and he’s believable in every one.

Untaru’s performance was splendid.  She’s such a child, and it’s so perfect.  Her interactions with Pace were absolutely delightful.  There were moments when I couldn’t help but chuckle to myself, not so quietly, because their conversations were so realistic.  Pace would say something and she’d agree, and then he’d ask her if she really understood him, and she’d say yes, but you know she didn’t, and they go round and round like that.  It’s precious.

The Fall is one of those films where the trailer is a masterpiece unto itself.  It wasn’t misleading, but there were definitely parts of the film that were contrary to what the trailer represented, but that made it all the more pleasing.  It perfectly blends the child-like enjoyment of a fantastic fairy tale with the horrible misery of very adult problems.  It reminded me that if we take a few moments to look at things from a child’s perspective, everybody can always use a little “happily ever after” in one way or another.

I saw a billboard for Leatherheads at the movie theater when I went to see Michael Clayton back in February, and by the time I actually saw it in the dollar theater a few weeks ago, I’d totally forgotten that it even existed.  Of course, I knew virtually nothing about it, but I like George Clooney and I LOVE John Krasinski (Where, oh where is the Jim to match my Pam in my real-life office?!), so I figured together they could cancel out my mild dislike for Renee Zellweger.

I knew it hadn’t done well in theaters.  There wasn’t really a lot of buzz surrounding its release, and there was even less once it was released.  February is kind of like the no-man’s land of movies.  It seems like all the really great films are released around Christmas time now; just in time to make themselves eligible for the Academy Awards and to keep their film fresh in the minds of the Academy.  Then the awards are at the end of February, so the first of the year is kind of a dead time for movies.  One of those times that you really want to go to the theater on Friday night, but you check to see what’s playing and realize there’s either nothing you want to see, or worse, nothing you’ve even heard of.  Well, at least that’s my take on things.

So I didn’t really expect much out of this one, which made it all the better that I loved it as much as I did.  From the very beginning when I realized that it was set in the 1920s, I was infatuated.  Just like I’m fascinated by the Holocaust, if it’s possible, I’m actually more fascinated by the ‘20s.  The clothes, the hair, the fashion, the styles: they’re all so enchanting.  Even writing that sentence gives me warm fuzzies, makes me giggle like a schoolgirl and leaves a huge smile on my face.  I just love that era.

So that was the first point in the movie’s favor.  Then it just turned out to be the perfect screwball comedy.  You know the type.  Most of it is far-fetched and silly and could never happen, but somehow it all just clicks and is delightful.  I laughed out loud the ENTIRE time, and unfortunately for the guy sitting down in the front of the theater, I have a very loud laugh when I’m thoroughly enjoying something.

So I guess I could get around to telling you a little about the movie and shut up about how much I loved it.  Clooney, who also directed the film, plays Dodge Connelly, a playboy type who can’t get enough of football even though professional football is a joke.  He hears about Carter Rutherford (Krasinski) a college football star who also happens to be a Great War veteran and hero.  You can’t get anymore All-American than that.

Connelly, being a schemer, figures he can use Rutherford’s success to boost the popularity and the budget of pro football.  And it works – for the most part.  But there’s always a wrench in the system somewhere.  It turns out that Rutherford’s hero status might be in question.  Enter Lexie Littleton (Zellweger), firecracker reporter and women’s libber long before there was an official Women’s Lib Movement.   Let me just say that if I could somehow raid her clothes from this film, I would beg, borrow and steal my way into a size 0.

Anyway, Lexie is assigned to get the real story of Rutherford’s war experience out of him.  No one was bargaining on him falling for her or her falling for him or Dodge falling for her or her falling for Dodge.  Who would have thought that a movie about the beginnings of pro football would turn into a romantic comedy?

The screenplay is charming.  The characters are refreshing.  Don’t let the bad box office showing dissuade you from getting this one from Blockbuster or Netflix.  If you can appreciate a quirky sense of humor, great acting and even better writing, you’ll be adding this one to your collection.  I know I will.

That’s when we got in line and found out that they had filled the theater in record time.  Oh well, all was not lost.  If we hadn’t spent a few extra minutes chatting at Trinity, we might have gotten in, and then we would have missed out on Then She Found Me.

I’d seen Colin Firth’s interview on the Daily Show with Jon Stewart several weeks ago, so I knew that Helen Hunt and Colin Firth were in the film, and that he played a single father who had a crush on Hunt’s character.  True to form, that’s all I knew about the film before we walked into the theater just as the trailers started.  And once again, not knowing anything else about the film made it a wonderfully surprising experience.

Hunt’s character is 39 year-old kindergarten teacher, April Epner.  April was adopted by a Jewish family, and she desperately wants a child of her own before her biological clock stops.  She’s been married to fellow kindergarten teacher Ben Green, played by Matthew Broderick, for 10 months, and they’ve been trying to conceive for at least that amount of time, with no luck.

Ben decides that he made a mistake, and he tells April that this isn’t the life he wants, but not before they have one last go at baby making on the kitchen floor.  April doesn’t sleep that night; presumably because her mind is full of questions like, “What am I going to do when I have to face my estranged husband across the way in his classroom tomorrow?”

Never fear, April!  Said estranged husband will simply run away from the problem by resigning his post and leaving you to take care of two classes worth of five year-olds.  Enter Colin Firth’s character, Frank.  He’s the father of one of Ben’s students, Jimmy Ray.  Frank hears April tell someone to stop calling her Mrs. Epner-Green and tries to offer a bit of consolation, to which, in her sleep-deprived state, April takes slight offense and believes that Frank is trying to hit on her…maybe so, maybe no…

As with most independent films that I’ve loved, character development is paramount, but this particular story has plenty of twists and turns to keep you engaged.  For instance, Bette Midler plays April’s pushy, celebrity biological mother who barges into her life.  April is torn between believing that this woman is her real mother and being angry that she abandoned her as a baby, which is completely understandable given April’s burning desire to be a mother.

April’s faith in everything – God, people, her own judgment – is strongly tested, but in the end, family – traditional and not so traditional – is there to offer love and support and help carry April through possibly the most tragic and upsetting period of her life.  And on the other side of this period – as so often happens – April discovers true contentment, unconditional love and that life’s disappointments can often turn into its most rewarding and fulfilling adventures.

So I was really looking forward to seeing The Happening.  Even though it was being marketed as an actual horror film, of which I’ve never been too fond, I knew that Shyamalan would put his own spin on it that would not include a half-naked, screaming blond.  He did not disappoint me in that respect; however, the movie fell flat.  

It’s only an hour and a half long, so I feel like character development was sacrificed for brevity.  Sure the story ran its course, and I did feel slightly invested in the main characters, but there was no depth.  There were definitely cringe-worthy horror-type moments, but there were few, if any moments, that I’ve come to expect in Shyamalan’s films.  There was the unveiling of the unorthodox resolution to the conflict, which was never actually confirmed – only speculated, but it didn’t carry the shock value of Sixth Sense, Signs or The Village.  There wasn’t that eye-opening moment of realization in which you find yourself thinking, “My god, Man, where do you get these ideas?!”

Mark Wahlberg is Elliott, an ordinary, crush-worthy high school science teacher who’s fiercely loyal to his wife, Alma, played by Zooey Deschanel.  She might not have been the half-naked, screaming blond, but she did her job in annoying me several times.  John Leguizamo is Julian, a math teacher who teaches at the same school as Elliott.

The dialogue between Leguizamo and Wahlberg was pretty bad.  I don’t know if it was directed on purpose that way, but there were moments when I found myself thinking, “These guys are better actors than this.  Why does this feel so fake and forced?”  

I know several of the TV trailers I saw were highlighting the fact that this was Shyamalan’s first R-rated film, and I’m a little puzzled about the rating.  Yes, there were some bloody, gory moments, but none for which I had to turn my head.  The bloodiest, goriest ones weren’t even shown.  They left those to your imagination, and my imagination couldn’t even make them scary enough.

I applaud Shyamalan for taking two very current newsworthy topics and making a film which I’m sure he hopes will raise awareness; however, I’m hoping for much greater things from his next film.  Please don’t let the spark of creativity go out!

Prior to February 17, 2008, I’d watched one racing event in my life, the Talladega 500 in 1993, and the only reason I watched that was because it was the tribute after Davey Allison’s helicopter crashed on the way to the race.  I was only 12, so I can’t really tell you why we watched it, but I know that my dad and I sat there and watched the whole thing.

So when I started dating a guy in February who loved racing, I thought to myself, “Well, I guess it’s a nice, relaxing way to spend Sunday afternoons.  And I have always liked cars and been interested in them.  So why not?”  I never in a million years expected to program my DVR to tape the races, and then to text said boyfriend in a rage over the injustice of Kyle Busch and Dale Earnhardt, Jr., colliding with only a few laps to go, thereby, dashing “Junior’s” hopes of breaking his losing streak.  I almost didn’t recognize myself.

And it didn’t stop at NASCAR.  I was also introduced to Formula 1 Racing and, as you might have gathered from the opening paragraph, Indy Car Racing.  Much to my chagrin, Formula 1 and Indy Car don’t run every weekend like NASCAR does, and I much prefer open wheel racing, especially Formula 1, to stock car racing.

Formula 1 is so exciting.  That’s the kind where they run on mostly road courses, and the cars are a lot faster and a lot lighter, which inherently makes them more dangerous, but man, it’s cool to watch them fly around corners at speeds well over 150 mph and deftly maneuver around chicanes.  

What’s a chicane (pronounced shi with a short i and cane like sugar cane), you might ask?  It’s simply an S-shaped curve, but it’s so much more than that when the amazingly talented cameramen and women catch Oscar-award winning shots of Felipe Massa or Robert Kubica or Kimi Raikkonen or Lewis Hamilton (the top 4 ranking drivers in the current F1 standings) snaking through the curves before they hurtle their Ferrari (Massa and Raikkonen), BMW Sauber (Kubica) or McLaren Mercedes (Hamilton) down a straightaway.  Honestly, the camera work is part of what makes the races so amazing.  

Most Americans are not as familiar with F1 racing as the other two forms of racing because it’s largely a European sport.  In fact, this year, the only North American race was held in Canada on June 8.  The other races are held in such exotic locales as Kuala Lumpur, Istanbul, Monte Carlo, Budapest and Japan.  Not exactly Bristol (Tennessee) on a Sunday afternoon.

Before the race at TMS on Saturday, June 7, Indy Car was actually my least favorite.  I mean, I was already watching NASCAR where all they do is drive around and around in circles for 3 or 4 hours, and F1 was way cooler than that with the road courses.  Why did I need to watch Indy Car?  In my mind, it was exactly like Formula 1, but nowhere near as cool.  But there isn’t another NASCAR race at TMS until November, and as I’ve already mentioned, I wasn’t going to be able to make it to an F1 race unless I suddenly came into an inheritance that would allow me to travel halfway across the world, so I thought, “What the heck?  It’s something fun to do on a Saturday night.”

Oh my gosh!!  It was so much more than “something fun to do on a Saturday night.”  Unfortunately, we didn’t get there in time for the green flag (the start of the race), so when we parked in the grass parking lot (translated: we still had a long way to walk), I could already hear the hum of the engines as they raced around at 211 mph.  Needless to say, I was a little grumpy.  If you’ve read any of my movie blogs, you know I like to completely experience things, and in my eyes, I’d already missed a large part of the experience.

When we finally got to our seats, 63 rows up while carrying a heavy cooler, and turned around and I finally experienced my first drive by, I was speechless.  Tears automatically welled in my eyes.  There are no words that can describe what happens as the cars blur by you, and you’re literally encompassed in a wave of sound.  And that was 63 rows up.  I can’t imagine how much more intense the experience would be close to the track.  

As the race went on and Marco Andretti, the 21 year-old phenom with the blood line that includes the skill and prowess of Mario and Michael Andretti, continually tried to go 3-wide to pass current points leader and 2008 Indianapolis 500 winner, Scott Dixon, and 2-time Indianapolis 500 winner (2001, 2002) Helio Castroneves (yes, he’s the one who was on Dancing With The Stars), the excitement continued to rise with Marco’s RPMs.  

Unfortunately, the checker flag (end of the race) wasn’t as exciting as it could have been.  There was a caution with only five laps to go, so Scott Dixon crossed the finish line as the winner during the caution at a mere 50 mph; anticlimactic to say the least, given that an end without caution could have seen speeds at or around 215 mph at the finish line.  In fact, the winner of the last 6 or so Indy Car races at TMS has edged out the runner-up by only hundredths or sometimes thousandths of a second.

I realize that some of you may be sitting there thinking, “I don’t care how good you make it sound, they’re still just driving around and around in circles for 550 miles.  There’s no way I’d ever waste 2 or 3 hours watching that.”  I once felt the same as you, but when you get to know about the drivers and the cars and all the work and tedium that go into all this every week, it changes your perspective.  I somehow feel smarter knowing what I know about the cars and the conditions now.  It may not be for everyone, but I know that racing is something that will become an integral part of my entertainment list.  Right alongside Grey’s Anatomy and Pride & Prejudice.

The winner of the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film in 2008 tells the story of these prisoners who succeeded in counterfeiting £132 million in £5, £10 and £20 notes.  Their delay in counterfeiting the dollar was pivotal.  Had they not delayed, the Nazis might have been able to flood the American economy; thereby, possibly causing a very different outcome to WWII in Europe.

This isn’t your typical WWII Concentration Camp film.  There are the obligatory references toward gassing and looting and all the other atrocious treatment of detainees, but the counterfeiters, whose peace time occupations ranged from banker to printing press operator to professional (i.e. criminal) counterfeiter,  are treated relatively well.  They are housed in their own little “ghetto” within the camp; they get regular meals, decent clothing and good beds.

When the camp is deserted by the Nazi leadership at the end of the war, the “regular” prisoners almost gun down these prisoners because they think they’re sympathizers.  And some of the counterfeiters, including the printing press operator, would agree with them.  Which led me to question what I would do if faced with this crisis?  Would I have delayed and sabotaged the operation as some did do or wanted to do, knowing that it would most certainly lead to my death, or would I act out of fear and do what I was told?  

In a time such as that, is it better to save your own skin or die for something in which you believe?  I suppose it’s one of those situations in which you never quite know how you’ll react until your feet are placed squarely over the coals.  I sincerely hope that I never have to find out just how hot a fire I can stand.

He spends the rest of the book explaining how he liberated himself from his internet company by eliminating time management and automating certain tasks.  He contends that the typical 9-to-5/40-hour workweek is an arbitrary idea.  He believes that many people create unnecessary work just to keep busy for 8 hours a day 5 days a week.  He differentiates between effectiveness and efficiency and suggests that through making yourself more effective, you'll be able to liberate yourself from the commonly accepted 9-to-5 routine by proving that you can get just as much work done in half the time.
 
With all the technological advances today, it's much easier for people to work from home than it ever has been, and I've heard some friends sing the praises of the freedom and flexibility, and in the very next breath, talk about how much more stressful it is.  Sure you have the freedom to work from home, but then that means that you can't really get away from work.  Instead of leaving work at work, you bring it home with you – literally.
 
Ferriss admits that implementing this sort of thing is much easier for independent entrepreneurs because you don't have a boss.  You ARE the boss, but as previously stated, he doesn't say that it's impossible if you do have a boss.  You just have to work a little harder, and he gives several examples of how to convince your boss that you can be just as effective from home, or anywhere else for that matter.
 
In these economic times, things are harder for everyone, and reading about how Ferriss has liberated himself and can therefore travel all around the world, will probably make you more than a little disenchanted with the current state of things.  However, if you can quiet your ego long enough to learn from his ideas about bolstering productivity, you might just make yourself an even more important asset to your company, which in better economic times, might mean that you could one day follow in Ferriss' footsteps and maybe even blaze a few trails of your own.

 * Timothy Ferris, The 4-Hour Workweek (New York: Crown Publishers, 2007), p. 7. 

I told a friend’s boyfriend about a month ago that this movie was to women what the opening of Phantom Menace was to men in 1999.  He said that that was ludicrous.  Had I waited 16 years between movies (in this case the series and the movie)?  No.  No, I hadn’t, but it’s still a HUGE occasion.

When I started watching the series on DVD in 2005, about 6 months after it finished and 7 years after it started, I was overwhelmed with a sense of belonging.  I wasn’t alone.  There were other people in the world, namely the writers and millions of other women who had made the show the success it was by tuning in every Sunday night on HBO, who felt the same way I did about relationships and kids and life in general.

I actually wrote a personal blog about the ending of the series.  I only had two episodes left to watch, and I was so torn.  On one hand, I couldn’t wait to finish and to see how everyone’s stories panned out.  On the other hand, I felt like I was losing an old friend.  There would be no more adventures, no more laughing at the outlandish things that came out of these girls’ mouths.

When I finally watched those last two episodes, I was thrilled with the ending.  Every story was wrapped with a nice, neat little bow, so although I wanted more, I felt like there couldn’t be anymore.  So you might wonder how I felt about the film.  If there couldn’t be any more at the end of the series, then how did they find enough material to make a film?  I’m not quite sure how, but they did.

It’s perfect!  It has the perfect blend of feeling like the regular 30 minute sitcom, but it’s totally a movie.  Even though it’s 2 hours and 15 minutes, what is that they say about time flying when you’re having fun?  It’s true.  I felt like I was being reunited with old friends.  There was a small round of applause when the familiar music and New York skyline showed through the opening credits.  The couture, the dialogue, the city – they’re all back and better than ever.

I wish I could tell you more.  I wish I could outline my favorite scenes and my favorite lines and my favorite declarations of love and my favorite outfits and my favorite…well, I think you get the picture.  But I can’t.  More importantly, I won’t.  I did my very best to stay away from every single trailer.  I wanted everything to be a surprise.  I wanted the day I decided to see it to be like Christmas morning for a 6 year-old.  But I was forced to sit through a trailer during Made of Honor, and it ruined more than a few scenes for me.

So I’ll leave you with this: I saw it twice in the first four days that it was released, and I have plans to see it again before it comes out on DVD.  To tide myself over before that day, I’ve started the series over again from season one.  It may not be exactly like Star Wars, but I think it’s as close as we women will ever get.

To be fair, I Love Everybody isn’t really in the same realm as Outlander.  Notaro writes from her own experiences and is extremely self-deprecating.  She’s a woman after my own heart.  Every time I picked up the 226 pages of sometimes painful honesty, I couldn’t help but sing a few bars from I Hate Everyone by Get Set Go.  Even though the main title is I Love Everybody, Notaro actually kind of hates everyone, so I thought the song was fitting.

The book is a compilation of short stories, and Notaro is a true comedian.  She knows how to take everyday, commonplace events and turn them into the funniest thing you’ve heard in awhile.  For anyone who’s been in an emergency room recently, you’ll love Rolling Down The River.  And although I personally love Kate Winslet, every woman will be able to relate to her hatred of the talented actress in Prude vs. Nude: Why I Hate Kate Winslet.  

In Putting the “Die” in “Diet,” anyone who’s been on the Atkins diet will enjoy a hardy laugh, and in “The Sims,” she exploits her husband’s selective hearing by shouting beer, boobies or video games to get his attention in order to get things done around the house.  She describes every woman’s worst nightmare in Swimming with the Fishes, and no, it’s nothing like an episode of the Soprano’s.

When I read books like this, I always tend to take my time.  I leave it at work to pick up during a lunch hour when I’ve forgotten my other book, and I’ll read a few sections, or I’ll take it with me to a doctor’s appointment, but I never really give it my undivided attention.  Notaro’s prose had me laughing so hard at times that I couldn’t wait to get to the next story to see what she was going to say THIS time.

21 was one of those films that I didn’t even realize was still in theaters, and by the time this blog gets published it might not be, but if you can find it at a dollar theater, it’s worth the dollar.  Especially considering that it’ll be $4.38 at Blockbuster if you wait until it’s out on DVD.

When I first saw the trailers, I thought it was interesting that the cutie, Jim Sturgess, with the great voice from Across the Universe was getting a shot at being the next “it” guy.  This time around Sturgess plays Ben Campbell, a brilliant student at MIT.  Ben’s been accepted to medical school at Harvard, but he, like so many others, can’t afford the $300,000 worth of tuition and fees.  He’s applied for scholarships, and he’s got a promising resume and letters of recommendation, etc., but the scholarship advisor tells him that he’s just not quite extraordinary enough.

One man’s junk is another man’s treasure because MIT professor Micky Rosa, the always brilliant Kevin Spacey, thinks that Ben’s pretty freakin’ awesome.  So awesome, in fact, that he invites Ben to be on his card-counting team.  Rosa has assembled a team of 5 students who have learned to systematically beat the game of blackjack, also known as 21.  Through a series of hand gestures, words that symbolism numbers and the use of brilliant mathematical minds, these students and Rosa clean up in Vegas every weekend.  

Suddenly, Ben doesn’t have to worry about being super extraordinary to pay for Harvard.  He’ll play the game just long enough to get his $300,000, and then he’s out.  Of course, the audience and Kate Bosworth’s character, Jill Taylor – a fellow member of the card-counting team, know better than that.  Ben will become addicted to the thrill, the glamour, the glitz, and then he’ll screw up and get the crap beat out of him, lose all his money, all his friends AND his acceptance into Harvard.  He won’t even be able to graduate from MIT.

As with most of the intriguing films I’ve seen recently, this one has a nice little twist that I kind of expected, but not exactly the way it happened.  Laurence Fishburne also has a small role as a disenchanted security man at the casino the team frequents.  Even though it’s not real, his hard-knuckle approach will definitely keep me from trying to count cards when I’m in Vegas this summer.