Movie weekend

Rushed out to see The Visitor during it's opening weekend. Glad to have supported it, but it was just o.k. It's made by the same guy who made The Station Agent. If you liked that movie, you'll like this one. It's good, but very subtle - not a lot happens and the end is a little flat. And it's another in a long line of bad movie titles - the "visiting" that the main character does is hardly the major theme of the movie (plus it sounds like a B horror flick). The movie wasn't bad, but it certainly wasn't amazing.

Since that wasn't as upbeat as we expected, we stopped at the video store on the way home, planning to get a comedy. But, as usual, we couldn't agree on anything, so we rented Brian DePalma's faux documentary about the real life rape and murder of a 14 year old Iraqi girl in 2006, Redacted, the Feel Good movie of the year. Clever and affecting, but not really a great movie. I thought it could have been a lot better, especially by spending a little more time on the characters after the crime (the last act of the film feels very rushed). And especially by connecting to the title more - showing more about how the crime was covered up. In the Valley of Elah covers much of the same territory and does it much better, IMO.

My Mother's Day treat for myself was to watch The Jane Austen Book Club on video. I thought it was adorable. Not sure why it wasn't a bigger hit. I know people fussed about the casting and such, but I read the book so long ago, I don't remember every detail, so I had no complaints. It's not a traditional romantic comedy, so maybe that's part of the problem. The performaces were terrific and it was especially great to see people like Lynn Redgrave and Nancy Travis in small parts. I thought it was quite fun and totally worth 110 minutes of my life.