Snow and Movies

Yesterday, we had a greenish-brown Christmas. It rained all day and all night on Christmas Eve and, consequently, it looked like late September outside. Now, the wacky weather gods of Illinois have taken care of that lack and then some. It's been snowing since last night and it continues to come down. We'd intended to go to Peru to buy paint for the girls' room (one of their big gifts was the promise of a redecorated, "older" room) but I don't think we're doing anywhere anytime soon.

Now, for the Christmas movie round-up. (Well, not Christmas movies exactly. Movies I watched over Christmas so far.)

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince: For my money, this is the best of the set so far. That's saying something because, until now, I thought Alfonso Cuaron's take on #3 was the strongest contender. It had a great visual sense and did a nice job telling the story too. However, David Yates, the guy who directed 5 and 6 and is also directing the two-part finale, really came into his own on this one. Perhaps it's because the story is wider than just the grounds of Hogwarts, maybe it's because the actors are old enough to really convey characters -- I don't know. All I know is, visually it looks wonderful and narratively, it's compelling, genuine, and worth re-watching. Compare this one to the first two and we see: #1 - digital technology has come a long way and #2 - Chris Columbus is a crappy hack of a director.

G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra: Yeah, I watched it. The same part of me that had to see the second Transformers needed to see this too. It is big and dumb but fun. I found it less offensive than Transformers but mainly because it doesn't take itself so seriously. It's not because it makes any more sense or because it's better filmmaking necessarily. Good enough to watch and turn your brain off to.

(500) Days of Summer: Strangely, I had a really hard time with this one. I like Joseph Gordon Leavitt (who plays Cobra Commander in the aforementioned big, dumb movie) and I have a minor-league crush on Zoey Deschanel -- but this film bothered me. It's about a guy who is crazy in love with a beautiful, mysterious, unknowable girl and how they go out for a while. Then she pulls away, they break up, and when he sees her next she's engaged and then married to some other guy who came out of nowhere. It hit a little close to home for me considering some experiences I had in college. (Curse you, Antonia Decker, curse you.) But other than my visceral emotional reaction, I thought it was a pretty fair movie with some nice indie music on the soundtrack.

So that's it for now. We'll see what else I get to before it's time to go back to real life.