Movie Roundup

Jennifer's Body--

I actually had expectations for Jennifer's Body, the trailers made it look like it could be a fun campy, maybe scary movie, similar in tone to this year's "Drag Me To Hell". However, Diablo Cody

is no Sam Raimi, and Jennifer's Body was short on both thrills, and laughs. Megan Fox did the best she could I suppose, deliv

ering lines like, "you're so lime green Jell-o and you don't even know it". Ugh. There was a fair amount of Veronica Mars crossover in this, and it was sad to see their talent wasted. We didn't see the movie in a full-enough theater to yell at the screen and have a good time, so Jennifer's Body was ultimately totally boring.

Final Verdict: Skip it

Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs--

I haven't been impressed with many non-Pixar animated films lately (Bolt came about the closest and it was just OK), but Cloudy

With A Chance took me by surprise. Cloudy is HILARIOUS, it's written and directed by the sa

me guys responsible for Clone High so it's no surprise that the humor was right up my alley. What I liked most is that the humor was funny enough to make my sides hurt, but it wasn't stuff that would go over the kid's heads. It's just funny, character based humor, without shoe-horning cultural references in a-la Shrek. Beyond being HILARIOUS (seriously, one of the funniest movies of '09) it's visually stunning, it's so fun to be transported to this food land. The film had a lot of emotional resonance too. The main character's relationship with his father was real and beautiful and made me cry. The voice work was great too, Anna Faris, Bill Hader, and Mr. T were all highlights. It's a seriously fun, sweet, well-paced moive.

Final Verdict: See it! (In 3-d!)

Word Wars

Word Wars is a really cool documentary about competitive Scrabble playing. Word Wars focuses on 4 competitors, going to the Nationals. They players

are all unemployed, living in squalor, and not anyone that you would aspire to be. These players gamble their money away on high stakes games of Scrabble, and obsess about anagrams all the time. Many of them claim to have the dictionary memorized. The documentary is depressing, it's hard to see people with such a specific, well-developed skill set suffer so much in the real world. Totally worth watching though, stomach-churning as it is.

Final Verdict: Rent It

The Squid and the Whale--

I revisited this movie finally. I saw it in theaters and loved it when it came out, I was 15 at the time. I was worried that like many indie type movies I saw at that age the cool factor would have worn off and I would be embarassed to have liked it. However, The Squid and the Whale held up. It's not often in movies that people who like to think of themselves as intellectuals are criticized, and Jeff Daniels' character is one of the more realistic professor types ever, and he sucks. Everyone in the movie is kind of miserable, and it's hard to watch, but totally enjoyable to revel in on a grey day.

Final Verdict: See it!