Movieola

Been through a recent batch of movies, and have some pending, so I thought I'd just mention a few:

Ratatouille - I went to see this last weekend, and my was it marvelous. I like cooking, and I like animation, and Pixar generally does a good job of the latter. They've also been pretty good at bringing a specific environment to life, and this was no exception. Their representation of a working kitchen felt pretty right to me. This is written and directed by Brad Bird, who created Iron Giant and The Incredibles. Recommended.

Knocked Up - I saw this one today with Jean. She picked it out. When I initially heard of it, I thought it was going to be a drama, and a tedious and depressing one at that. Then I heard it was going to be a comedy. "Good luck with that," I thought. After all, it's about two strangers getting hit with an unplanned pregnancy. But Jean mentioned it, and then I heard it was by the guy who did The Forty Year Old Virgin (Judd Apatow). That was funny in a totally irreverant way, so I was more willing to give this a chance. As it turns out, it was pretty funny, with some laugh-out-loud moments. The characters were all note-perfect as well. There was a cameo by Harold Ramis, and I couldn't help wishing he did more acting. He has great screen presence. So both Jean and I liked this one.

Recently, those television moguls have been showing multiple screenings of Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl. Gee, I wonder why? Anyway, Renee caught a chunk of it out of the corner of her eye while working on the computer and insisted on watching the ending. So I recorded one of the multiple repeats, and we watched the whole thing together. Last weekend, we rented the second movie, and thoroughly enjoyed it. I'm thinking that this coming weekend, we'll go to the theater and see the third. Suits me, as I enjoyed the first two quite a lot.

Finally, in the queue for me alone, is a repeat viewing of The Third Man, which I saw years ago and really enjoyed. I've just recently gotten a strong hankering to see it again, and it was available at the library, so I'm going to be watching it in a day or two...