Pammyk's thoughts

I can hardly remember the title of the Harry Potter movie I just watched...you know, the new one...in theaters now. Number 4 or 5...Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban...or Harry Potter and the Ministry of Mistries...whatever. I don't really care that I can't remember the titles or keep the storylines straight from the different movies - I just truly love being entertained by these films, and this last one was just as good.

Farm life...there was sweat, hard work, drunkeness, dirt, struggle; but there was also peacefulness, calm, green grass, light breezes, swimming holes and crickets chirping. There is a calming feel to the movie that draws you in and just the right amount of hopefulness to the struggle and the sad. I thought that the combination of calm and hopefulness made it a sad but beautiful film. It left me feeling like I was laying in a field on a warm summer night...after a hard days work and a cool dip in the swimming hole...looking up at the stars knowing that I can't control where my life is headed, but that I can control the kind of person I am.

I went to the Valentine's Day screening. I was excited about getting my Four Eyed Monsters sticker and had already decided to like the movie. How can I decide to like a movie before I've seen it? The same way that I decide that I don't want to see a movie before I've seen it - fairly close mindedly.

So did I truly like it? Would I have liked it if I had randomly seen it at a film festival before hearing anything about it? If I hadn't just had two java jive martinis and was sharing a box of chocolates with my friends on Valentine's Day? I'll never know. It was a little wacky and there was some potty mouth and swear words - things that normally turn me off to a movie, but I liked watching it.

I liked watching Arin and Susan write to eachother. I liked watching Susan at her job. I thought Arin's fantasies were funny. I liked how the birds were beautiful and fluttery and then when there was an STD in question the birds were walking around on a gross rooftop in their own poop. 

I felt like Susan could do better than Arin though, at least throughout most of the movie. Toward the end I felt like maybe Susan was being more completely herself in the movie, but Arin was acting. There were just a few scenes toward the end where I felt like Arin was himself and relaxed with Susan, and then I started to see a wonderful little four eyed monster. 

I've seen lots of different versions of "A Christmas Carol" and this one isn't the best, but it was on TV last night so I watched it. I liked it of course. You just can't help feeling so so sad about Tiny Tim and you can just feel the fresh cold air and the excitement of Christmas morning when Scrooge wakes up and realizes that he hasn't missed Christmas and there is still time to change and buy that huge goose for the Crachits. Its such a wonderful story that I'm not sure it matters which one you're watching. My main complaint about this one is that Scrooge was bald and younger looking - he should have wispy white hair and be ugly.

What I liked about this movie was how it made me think about nature and history. After the movie was done we talked about what it would be like to arrive in a new land and try to settle there - and how strange it would be to find people different from you living there. We also talked about nature and how different the Indians used the land compared to the English people. It made us really aware of how much we struggle with nature rather than work with it.

What I didn't like about this movie was that it was very slow moving. My sister fell asleep half way through and then she woke up and left the room to go sleep somewhere else. Then towards the end of the movie my dad left the room and didn't bother coming back to watch the end - it just didn't hold their attention. I also felt like the music could have been better, I kept waiting for a new more grand part of the song, but it seemed to stay at the same excitement level and the same melody. And also, I disliked that toward the end nothing bad happened anymore and it was just a romance story - what happened to the Indians? What was going on in the English settlement? There was so much struggle in settling and struggle between people earlier in the movie, and then that just disappeared and we were only watching Rebecca fall in love with John Rolfe.

It was almost a 3 star. It wasn't unique, it wasn't that memorable, it was a little predictable, it didn't end right...it was pretty much 3 star material. What got me was the fighting...it seemed realistic to me. They actually seemed frustrated at eachother, I could remember feeling that same way at times, and so...it got 4 stars for being realistic.

This was the best idea ever. I love Horton and I love Jim Carrey. I can't wait for this movie to come out. Will it beat the original cartoon, probably not...but I'm excited anyway.

http://comingsoon.net/news/movienews.php?id=16502