Friday Night Movies

In which we are revealed for the philistines we truly are.

E - March of the Penguins. I was pretty excited: E picked a movie I didn't mind watching! So much for that. We lasted about 20 minutes. I kind of regretted that we weren't seeing those vast expanses of ice on the big screen, but I was glad we were at home so I didn't have to worry about the volume of E's constant questions. The penguins walking across the ice were interesting and cute, we liked the eggs being transferred from Mom to Dad, but then the endless winter got a little slow for us and, for me at least, the anthropomorphizing got a little tendentious. We fast-forwarded to where the baby penguins hatched (E has been studying birds for the last two months at school, so we are very up on egg teeth and the like). Then we got bored and gave up. And I have to say, that we means both of us. Oh well.

M - Mary Kate and Ashley's School Dance Party. There is no excuse. I like some of the MK & A party movies: ballet, beach, costume. But the mall party is a sick and twisted exercise in training young girls for conspicuous consumption. And this one, in which they are boy crazy junior high girls getting ready for, you guessed it, the school dance, is just nauseating. But she wanted it. (Speaking of MK & A, lately M and E have gotten into Full House reruns on ABC Family and Nick at Nite. Somehow I missed this show in its original incarnation, but it is just the sweetest thing. Love the 80s fashion and hair, the plumpish oldest sister, the goofy dads and uncles, and, especially, MK/A back when they were adorable, and some of the jokes even make me laugh!)

Me - Celebrity. Woody Allen. And I didn't watch it till Saturday, hence Friday Night Movies posted on Sunday. And S was home so he watched it with me. And it sucked. My god, it sucked. First of all, the black and white was just totally annoying in this case. Second of all, the fact that we couldn't tell whether this was Woody Allen taking his schtick to the nth degree or parodying his schtick was not good. Third of all, the obsessive obsession with women's sexuality is just downright boring, along with obsessive. Kenneth Branagh as Woody Allen was a pretty impressive performance, but I don't know why Judy Davis keeps letting him cast her in these unpleasant roles. And, as far as we could tell, the take home message was: celebrities are happier. Huh?