I hope these posts are interesting. I figure if you guys took the time to recommend stuff for me, I should take the time to tell you what I thought of them.

Wallace & Gromit in Three Amazing Adventures: A kind but dense man and his faithful but overworked dog have adventures. I had high hopes for this after I saw Chicken Run. I was a little disappointed. It was cute, and the second and third episodes were pretty funny. But the first one was boring. And overall, I just didn’t think it was particularly funny. I think all the Futurama and Aqua Teen Hunger Force I watch has sharpened my tastes. Wallace & Gromit : American cheese :: ATHF : Gorgonzola, or perhaps Limberger. (Anecdote time. My husband actually likes Limberger. I refuse to let it enter the house because I cannot stand the smell of it–even if it’s still wrapped and sealed! Really.)

The Silver Stallion: A legendary silver horse in the Australian outback outwits the man who tries to catch him. It’s a bit like the Black Stallion but not really. I enjoyed the meta-fiction twist here: there’s a mother and daughter who like horses. The mother is a writer, and her daughter is reading the book her mother writes. Except midway through the story, the daughter realizes it’s true–this story is really happening as her mother writes it. It’s a nice magical touch that doesn’t need explaining. And I loved how the horse wins at the end and escapes with magic (or so it’s implied.)

Futurama–The Farnsworth Parabox, Three Hundred Big Boys, Spanish Fry, The Devil’s Hands are Idle Playthings: And with this disc, I complete my goal of watching all the episodes of Futurama. Pretty good set. I liked the alternate universe Fry/Leela romance and the bizarre things everyone did with their tax refunds.

Lost in Translation: Two Americans suffering culture-shock in Tokyo find solace in each other’s company. I thought this film did a terrific job of capturing what it feels like to be in a foreign country where you don’t speak the language. And I was extremely pleased that the two characters didn’t sleep with each other; I was cringing during the movie and hoping it wouldn’t lead to that. It was much better with the non-resolved ending where we can’t quite hear what he says to her. My favorite thing about the movie was how “lost in translation” was a theme on multiple levels: between Japanese and Americans, between friends, between spouses–nobody really gets what anyone else is saying. Ever.

Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat: Musical version of the Joseph story from the Bible. Andrew Lloyd Webber’s work. Not as good as Jesus Christ Superstar, but it was a lot of fun to watch, and the number of colors and the crazy flashing lights nearly gave me a seizure. Good times. I’ll watch it again.

Stranger Than Fiction: An IRS agent discovers that someone is narrating his life and seems to know what’s going to happen to him. This was brilliant! It straddled that awkward line between funny and serious which so few movies accomplish–and there’s even a scene where the protagonist tries to figure out if the narrator’s put him in a comedy or a tragedy. Highly recommended.

This Is Spinal Tap: I figured I should try this after Best in Show. A mockumentary about a rock band. It had funny moments (I liked the part with the bread and sandwich meat complaints), but overall it was a lot of characters yelling at each other. The arguments were sort of comic, but I don’t really enjoy watching arguments and it left me a bit tense. I thought their music was pretty decent though.

More movies to come. Probably one more post, maybe two. I’m gradually returning to my life after this short intermission.

It’s amazing how many movies you can get through when all you do is sleep, go to the doctor, and watch movies. I would describe my current status as somewhat better, but not as well as I’d hoped for.

Bride and Prejudice: The Bollywood version of Pride & Prejudice, set in modern India. Okay, I was dubious about this one, but pleasantly surprised. It was lots of fun, and I loved the music and bright costumes. What I really liked was how they used the Austen story as direct inspiration, but didn’t follow it dogmatically. So I knew approximately how the story would go, but there were a few surprises (most pleasantly, the fate of the youngest sister). I’ll be watching this one again sometime.

Casanova: Famous Italian lover attempts sexual escapades in historical Venice. I liked the setting and costuming here, but it didn’t quite work for me as a comedy. Maybe I just wasn’t in the right mood for it at the time. I did like the sexually ravenous “virgin” (or so her father claimed she was…)

Best in Show: A mockumentary about a dog show. I didn’t like it at first, but it definitely grew on me, and by the end I was laughing hysterically. The characters were all so funny–just walking the line between plausible and implausible. My favorites were the Starbucks couple (the “catalog people”) who were convinced their dog was a problem when clearly they were the dysfunctional ones.

Saved!: A born-again Christian high-school girl tries to “save” her boyfriend from homosexuality by sleeping with him. When she becomes pregnant, she finds out who her real friends are. This was a really terrific movie. I thought it was going to be a light comedy, but it got surprisingly serious. It did a nice job differentiating real Christians from control-freaks who use Christianity as an excuse. (I’m not Christian myself, but seriously–if I were, I would completely annoyed by people co-opting my religion to claim that Jesus hates “bad” people.) Well worth watching, especially for anyone who’s cynical about organized religion.

Waking Ned Devine: Two men in small-town Ireland try to claim the lottery winnings of their dead friend. Completely wonderful movie, and satisfying on every level. Lots of tiny little details about small-town life, including the way that everyone knows everyone else. I really don’t want to give the ending away, but let’s just say that it’s completely surprising and completely perfect. That’s hard to do. Highly recommended.

Hairspray: A teenager in the 60’s competes for the title of Miss Auto Show. Along the way, there’s singing, dancing, and race riots. Yeah, this movie was very strange. It was a farce that became strikingly serious at some points, making me wonder if I was supposed to be taking the whole thing more seriously than I was. But it’s hard to be too serious about a movie where someone hides a bomb inside a giant blonde beehive hairdo. The movie was fun, but a little disconcerting.

How To Steal a Million: An heiress and a detective conspire to steal a statue that they know is fake. Another Audrey Hepburn movie (Shannon’s coworker must love her work). I liked watching the heist and especially admired the way they escaped the locked closet. Not to mention the delightfully incompetent burglary scene in the beginning. Good film.

More movies to come.

You guys did a tremendously good job recommending movies for me. I’m really picky and it’s amazing how many of these movies I’ve liked.

Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon The Movie: Yes, that’s the title. This is actually the movie I started with, but I forgot to list it. Our favorite milkshake, box of fries, and chunk of meat save the planet from a rampaging exercise machine. Along the way, there’s some exploding kittens, robots making out with aliens, and an abducted coffee table. ATHF is like South Park on drugs. Seriously. I’m a huge ATHF fan and love the TV show. So I knew what to expect from the movie. Lots of violence, blood, and completely bizarre scenes. As stated before, I don’t LIKE all that blood, but when I’m expecting it, it’s tolerable. Plus, I know the characters will be just fine by the next episode. So if Shake get his hands cut off, no biggie; he’s already been chopped with an axe and possessed by insane aliens in other episodes. He’ll be okay. Anyway: this movie is awesome if you like ATHF, and possibly awesome if you don’t.

The King of Masks: A Chinese street performer adopts a child so that he can pass on his trade secrets. I loved the genderbending aspect of the film. Good story. Lots of threats to the characters. I got really anxious and was worried it would end badly, like so many Chinese films, but I trusted the recommendation. The ending turned out to be very satisfying and joyous. Whew.

Strictly Ballroom: A competitive ballroom dancer pairs up with an ugly duckling and teaches her to dance. Of course they fall in love. This was such a fun movie! Great recommendation. I loved all the great costumes and the wonderful dancing. I’m a dancer myself but I’ve never studied ballroom dancing. Now I want lessons. My husband thinks it sounds fun, so maybe we’ll look around for something…

The Muppet Show-Don Knotts, Zero Mostel: You know. It’s the Muppet Show. I picked up Volume 2 and watched a few episodes. The Don Knotts one was especially weird because I must have seen that episode dozens of times as a kid. So I had this weird deja vu feeling as I watched. I couldn’t tell you exactly what would happen next, but once it did, it felt exactly right. Feels like I’m made out of gingerbread, uh-huh, uh-huh…

Clash of the Titans: I thought I’d heard this was a classic. Greek hero Perseus becomes a legend. Shannon said it was totally camp but pretty good anyway. He was right. Cheesy as all get out. He and I heckled the film like good MST3K fans, and had a great time. I learned that ketchup-blood bothers me almost as much as more realistic special effects.

The Queen: Queen Elizabeth II deals with the controversy surrounding Princess Diana’s death. This is totally not the film I was expecting, for various reasons, but I did like it. I remember when Diana died, my reaction was “Wow, that’s really sad,” and then during the next week I was rather baffled by all the chaos. This film helped me understand a little better why Diana meant so much to people and how thoroughly the British royals bungled the situation. (Assuming this film was reasonably accurate, which I got the feeling it was.) It gave me a lot to think about regarding the concept of hereditary monarchies in the modern world.

Shall We Dance: Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers dance on an ocean liner. This was my first Astaire/Rogers film. I enjoyed it, but frankly I liked Gene Kelly so much more that this movie fell a bit flat for me. I wasn’t really into the story, and there didn’t seem to be as much dancing as I’d hoped for. The dancing was the best part, of course, especially the engine room scene. And now I have an opinion on Astaire versus Kelly, which I’d never had before. I think Astaire has equal or possibly better technical skills than Kelly, but that Kelly has more artistry and charisma. Just my take on it.

More movies to come.

The movies will continue until morale improves!

My Fair Lady: I knew many of the songs from this but I’d never actually seen it. Man, it was long. But I enjoyed most of it. A linguistics professor trains a flower girl to speak like an aristocrat. I usually don’t care too much about celebrities (and often don’t even notice who’s in which movies), but at the moment where Audrey Hepburn descends the stairs, dressed in her white ballgown, I realized that she was one of the most beautiful and talented actresses in the history of Hollywood. I didn’t know how much majesty was possible simply by walking a few steps. I liked all the class issues involved. The ending made me mad, because Eliza deserved better than that jerk.

Pleasantville: Two teenagers get transported through their television into a 50’s sitcom world. Their actions bring mayhem to the formerly peaceful town–bringing both positive and negative changes to the world. I thought this was a great premise, and I liked watching the black-and-white town slowly become colorized. Overall, I felt like the treatment of the idea was a lot more serious than it deserved; I thought it’d be a lighthearted film, but it got really heavy by the end. It felt like a bait-and-switch where I didn’t get the film I was expecting. It wasn’t bad, but I think a comedy would have better suited this idea.

An American in Paris:  A young painter courts a French dancer in post-war Paris.  I’m really liking Gene Kelly’s style. The 17-minute dance number at the end was fabulous.  Overall, I didn’t like it as well as “Singin’ in the Rain,” but I definitely enjoyed it anyway.

Serendipity:  Boy meets girl. They fall in love.  Instead of getting together, they decide to let fate determine whether they find each other again or go their separate ways.  It was funny and sweet, but the premise really bothered me.  Probably because I don’t believe in fate.  So when they do crazy things like say, “Let’s get in different elevators and push a random button, and see if we choose the same floor, and if so, we were meant to be” — well, that’s just silly. Because they DID push the same buttons, but one of them got stuck with a bratty kid who pushed all the buttons between there.  And by the time he got to the floor he’d picked, the girl had given up and left.  Plus, when they decide to look for each other later in the movie (while they’re engaged to other people) they both break the hearts of their current SOs by leaving them.  I didn’t think that was romantic–I thought it was crappy.  I liked that they got together in the end, of course, but since it was at the expense of their SOs, it wasn’t very satisfying.  That said, it was funny and I liked watching all the coincidences that kept forcing them back towards each other.

Futurama–Where No Fan Has Gone Before, The Sting, Bend Her, Obsoletely Fabulous:  Ah, Futurama is back in top form here.  Four great episodes.  I think The Sting is possibly one of the best episodes I’ve ever seen. It’s the one where Leela thinks Fry is dead from an alien killer bee sting, except in reality she’s the one who’s  in a coma from the sting and hallucinating everything.  It was such a romantic episode.  I wish Leela would give Fry a chance.  He’d be better for her than a lot of the guys she dates.

My Brilliant Career:  In 1897 Australia, a young girl asserts her independence and her desire to avoid marriage.  It’s sort of an Australian Anne of Green Gables.  She was wonderfully spirited and I loved her as a protagonist, but overall the plot of the story left a bit to be desired.  It felt like a string of anecdotes in her life that didn’t quite add up to a full story.  Actually, it felt more like non-fiction biography (which I think it was), which is a fine genre but not as appealing to me as a well-plotted story.  Still, a good film, and I liked seeing the time and place.

My Neighbor Totoro:  I generally don’t like Miyazaki and you all said this one might be different. You’re right–I liked this pretty well.  Two girls explore the woods near their house and meet the forest spirits.  What I liked about this movie (and where Miyazaki usually fails me) is that the girls felt like real people and they were the heroes of the movie.  Too often, I think Miyazaki makes a big deal of his female characters and how “girly” they are.  They’re either too fragile, or swooning, or sexualized, or… something.  These two girls were just right.  I really liked them and the way they interacted.  I also really loved seeing a truly happy family–with a problem, certainly, but they loved each other, and that was deeply satisfying. And of course the Cat Bus ruled.

More movies to come.

I have tried to watch at least one movie from everyone who made three or more suggestions.

A Walk in the Clouds: A young Army veteran pretends to be the husband of an unwed mother, so she can introduce him to her family before he “abandons” her. Of course they fall in love, but along the way there’s a lot of great character interaction among her Hispanic grape-growing family and the difficulties of being a winemaker. It’s a little hard to explain this film. I really loved it, though–it had an authentic 40’s feel and (I think) well-researched Napa vineyard details. The movie transcended the wooden acting of Keanu Reeves, and managed to be great despite his presence. I recommend this one.

Chicken Run: This was hysterical! Led by a brave and persistent hen, a flock of chickens attempt to escape their coop before the farmer makes them into pies. My favorite part was where the heroes get thrown into the pie machine and have to fight their way out the Rube Goldberg-like crazy contraption. The pacing was really good on this movie; it never slowed down for a minute. I really dislike Mel Gibson because of his homophobic rants, but I could try to pretend it wasn’t him voicing the rooster. This is one of my favorites I’ve seen in the past week.

Futurama–Bender Should Not Be Allowed on TV, Jurassic Bark, Crimes of the Hot, Teenage Mutant Leela’s Hurdles, The Why of Fry: Hey, it’s Futurama. How can it be bad? That said, I thought these episodes were a bit on the weak side for Futurama, which is to say they were just good instead of awesome. The one with Fry’s dog sitting outside the pizza parlor for twelve years made me cry, though. (It’s weird how many parallel universes appear to have happened on December 31, 1999…)

Stardust: A star falls to earth and takes human form. Many people want to possess her, either for good or evil, and so they fight over her. The ghosts of the dead princes made me laugh–I really liked the idea that they got to hang around and heckle their murderers. I thought this was a good story and well done, although much more violent than I was expecting. I liked the happy ending, of course, but the violence left me unsettled.

Some Like It Hot: Two men who witness a Mafia hit disguise themselves as female musicians to escape. It’s unfortunate that this was the next movie I chose. It’s one that Shannon’s coworker sent. There are two extremely violent scenes involving gunfire and massacre. They’re very short, and most of the film is slapstick comedy, so I can see how the movie might be viewed as “very little violence”. But since I was already on edge from Stardust, the massacres upset me very much. After the first one, I had to ask a friend who’d seen it whether I was already through the worst part (because if I was, I might as well keep going). She warned me about the second scene, so I decided to keep going and just close my eyes for that part. I did like the movie overall. I’d never seen anything with Marilyn Monroe before.

My Life in Pink: A 7-year-old transgendered kid deals with a family that doesn’t believe that she’s really a girl. (Biologically male, quite sure God made a mistake with her.) This was very moving and lovely, and I felt so bad for this poor kid. I’ve seen stories of teenage transgendered people, but never one with a child so young–but of course it happens, even as young as 4 or 5. It was both charming and heartbreaking to see the kid figure out gender issues, all filtered through a 7-year-old’s view of the world. There’s a cute scene where, after her older sister explains XX and XY chromosomes, she imagines God tossing letters down the family’s chimney, and a Y gets snagged on her chromosomes and knocks the second X into a garbage can. That’s exactly what a 7-year-old would see. I was really scared it would end sadly–but I trusted the person who recommended it wouldn’t give me a sad movie. The ending was definitely bittersweet. I loved this movie, but I really wish I hadn’t watched it when I was still upset from Some Like It Hot.

The Great Mupper Caper: After those last three, I needed something I could trust to be silly, light, and happy. Muppets were a sure win. I’d seen this movie years ago, but forgotten almost everything. The Muppets visit England and try to catch a jewel thief. The movie isn’t as good as other Muppet movies, mostly because it’s all about Miss Piggy and I really don’t like her. There’s one interminable song sequence all about her glamorous self. But still, it’s Muppets, and it’s fun. I liked the way they all knew they were in a movie and kept talking to the audience about it. For some reason, that really worked well in this movie.

More movies to come.