Avoid the Black Holes

It's important to clarify that I'm not disparaging Suzanne's taste in movies. I'm not. She has good taste in movies and we enjoy a lot of the same things. (That's usually what we mean by "good taste," right? Someone who likes the same random stuff we do?)

No, what I'm talking about is a minor streak of poor movie selection. Frankly, Suzanne is a bit of a piker - I had a streak of picking bad movies in Michigan that lasted for almost half a year. Seriously, not even die-hard Lions fans could have stayed with me after that year at the video store.

So when I say the last two movies we've watched have been powerful black holes of life-draining garbage, it's not Suzanne's fault. She chose them but neither of us really knew what we were getting into.


My Life In Ruins stars Nia Vardalos who was charming and self-deprecating and smart in My Big, Fat, Greek Wedding. In this film, she plays a character who is high-strung in that way that women in movies are high-strung -- too much attention to pointless detail, unable to have fun, disconnected from passion. She's a tour guide in Greece who hates her job and finds no joy in schlepping crass American tourists around. She spends too much time listing off facts and dates and no time loving where she is or what she does. Enter the very slumming Richard Dreyfuss as the wise, carpe diem-ish old man, Irv. He instructs Nia's character who, by the end, has let her hair down, come to find love, and learned to LOVE LIFE! It's an age-old story but not one that has to be atrocious if it's done right. This was not done right. The characters were worn-out cliches and the writing might as well have been produced by junior high thespians from Altadena Middle School. My brain felt smaller and a little dried out watching this one.


"Hey, Nia! Like my floppy, old man hat? I can't believe I'm getting paid for this!"

Confessions of a Shopaholic. Honestly, the less said about this movie, the better. It's terrible. Clunky, contrived, stupid. Don't waste your time.