I'll hit you so hard they'll arrest you in El Paso for speeding.

So I have been terrible about mentioning recent movie watching...so far it's already a better year than 2008. (I mean movie-wise for me, but then taking today into consideration makes it even better...)

The weekend before last I saw Clint Eastwood's Gran Torino and the much-hyped indie flick Rachel Getting Married. I'm really not the biggest Eastwood fan--I like him just fine, I just can't say I seek his stuff out. But I really enjoyed this one--the less you know about it the better. It's the way the story unfolds and becomes about something different multiple times along the way that I found really impressive.



Sure, his character is a little recycled from characters past, but whatever, he does it well. The other actors...let's just say it, are pretty damn bad. I admire the effort to recruit people from the exact ethnic background as written, and I get that these are all first-timers, etc., etc., but on more than one occasion, the acting is so bad (the dialogue can also be faulted here and there) it nearly takes you out of the movie.

This matters not, it's still a kick-ass movie. And by the end, there was not a dry eye in the house.

Rachel Getting Married is a lot like last year's Margot at the Wedding. If you didn't like the latter, don't watch the former. Grainy indie movie + severe family dysfunction = Good Times.



Rachel is better than Margot, though. It doesn't smother you with angst and it's a more compelling look at two sisters' uh, drama, shall we say. It's not the most uplifting movie, but it's not a downer, either.

This past weekend my sister and I saw Frost/Nixon, which we'd been trying to see since xmas eve, but stuff just kept getting in the way. (Ok, we went shopping instead, arrest me.)



Obviously, it was great...and it didn't really reek of being a Ron Howard film, which is perhaps due to its having originally been a play, who knows. I would have loved to have seen the play, which both Michael Sheen and Frank Langella originally starred in before reprising their roles for the film. Honestly, it seems better suited to film, but I'm sure I could be surprised.

And I'm always thrilled to see Michael Sheen doing something other than play Tony Blair or be in another Underworld flick.

As for DVDs, I'm halfway through Fanny and The Milagro Beanfield War, neither of which I've seen before. The former is so! melodramatic! but it works, and the latter is quite different from what I imagined. I can't tell you what I imagined, but it's different. Hopefully they finish as strong as they start...