THE MEANDERWALKER

(I apologize to anyone who has already read this on my tumblr. Did I mention I have a tumblr? It’s neat.)

I saw more movies over this holiday week than I’ve seen in the past 5 months (read: two).

I saw Juno:

Which was great. It had an awesome soundtrack, and I’m a fan of the The Kinks now as a result of watching this film. I’m also a big fan of Ellen Page now — so much so, that I will forgive her for being in that X-Men movie.

I’m going to use the word “fan” a little more here…

I have to admit, though, I was worried at the beginning after the first hamburger-phone conversation — not a fan of the deliberately overly trendy language — but it tapered off into pure enjoyment. I think I’m a new fan of Diablo Cody — which means I’ll be picking up some of her other written work — I don’t care if she was a stripper once, maybe.

Go see it. Fanhood.

I also saw Margot At The Wedding:

Which was neither good nor bad. It was written and directed by Noah Baumbach, who also wrote some of The Life Aquatic and wrote and directed The Squid and the Whale (with Wes Anderson’s help, of course), both of which I liked a lot, so I figured I would like this one, too.

I’ve never experienced a movie in which I hated every single character in it — even the children — but still didn’t despise the film itself. I mean it: I. Hated. Every. Character. I would never want to meet or have a conversation with, let alone be RELATED to, any of these people. I hate to admit it, but Jack Black’s character was the most relatable and genuine character in the movie — which isn’t saying much, since there was that scene with him in his underwear crying in his backyard. And the tree is a metaphor for Margot. At least as far as I could tell.

Also, the film bordered on pretentious, was very talky, and the screenplay must have been 600 pages long. There was so much excessive information about everyone and everything, I couldn’t even begin to digest any of the information until afterwards. But I guess it’s intended to get the audience so wrapped up in the emotion of everything that you don’t have time to think or judge or digest.

I know that I was so wrapped up in everything that I didn’t even see the only other two people in the theater — besides us — walk out at some point. They obviously hated the characters AND the movie.

I’m looking forward to Cloverfield.