I bet few of you have even heard of this movie. I hadn’t either until I saw a preview about 3 weeks ago. I figured it would never come to this town so I promptly forgot about it. Well, I had too little faith in our little hometown Carmike, cause they screened it after all.

It was so cute. Keri Russell portrays Jenna, a waitress in a small town pie-diner, who discovers she is pregnant. Jenna hates her husband (Jeremy Sisto) because he is overbearing and smothers all of her identity out of her. To him, she exists solely for his own needs. A common occurrence in the movie, in one particular scene he demands that she promise him that she will never love the baby more than she loves him. She promises so that he will shut up.

Jenna is also a supreme pie maker. She invents pies that match her mood and mirror what is going on in her life. When she is feeling stressed or particularly atagonized by her husband, she shuts her eyes and envisions an empty pie crust that she then fills with ingredients.

Keri Russell was just perfect for this character. I never watched Felicity and I’ve never seen her in much of anything else, so I just discovered how fun she can be. She makes the character snappy and likeable even as she is telling her friends that she does not like her baby and never will.

Another interesting note about this film is that after it had been completed, the writer/director of the film Adrienne Shelly, who also plays a fellow diner waitress, was murdered in her New York City office. A window washer is the current suspect. It was sad to watch the film with that knowledge but I was also glad I was seeing it, since it was the last thing she worked on and cared about.
I don’t even think this is playing anymore, but definitely check it out on DVD. It’s a lovely little movie

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Well, needless to say, Knocked Up is hilarious. Starring Katharine Heigl as the surprised expectant mother Alison and Seth Rogan as father-to-be Ben, this movie has charm to spare. Much like 40 Year Old Virgin, the humor is raunchy and stupid, but lovable as well. The characters are just so likeable. Everyone in the movie is basically a good person.

The film asks the question: can two people who would never have spoken to each other again after a one night stand make it work? Much of the comedy stems from the fact that this couple does not know anything about each other and must fumble their way through the early days of a relationship parallel to fumbling their way through their first pregnancy. Their first fight, over their condom “misunderstanding”, is one of the funniest scenes in the whole movie. You can see their compatibility in their verbal attacks on one another.

So far writer/director Judd Apatow has me as a fan. 40 Year Old Virgin and Knocked Up were smart, charming, hilarious films, and I can’t wait to see what else he can do.

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Mr. Brooks was a pleasant surprise. I subscribe to EW, and I read the reviews of the movies I’m not sure I want to see. This one was lackluster. However, I was intrigued by the idea of Kevin Costner playing a villian – someone truly evil. He’s just always such a good guy, either overly ordinary or extra heroic.

Mr. Brooks attends AA meetings to deal with his addiction to killing. He has a healthy relationship with his wife and daughter. He has a very close and personal multiple personalilty named Marshall, played by William Hurt. And now he has ended his “sobriety” of two years by killing another young couple. But this time he makes a mistake and leaves the curtains open and in comes Dane Cook, playing “Mr. Smith”. Mr. Smith wants to go on a murder with Mr. Brooks and threatens to go to the police if he won’t play along. Demi Moore is a policewoman looking for the Thumbprint Killer (better known as Mr. Brooks).

I really enjoyed watching this movie and there were actually quite a few funny moments. However, a subplot involving his daughter is awkward and almost completely unnecessary when included in the flow of the story and Demi Moore gets her own subplot as well. Sometimes there is too much going on and all I wanted to do was ride along with Mr. Brooks and Mr. Smith and observe their amusing moments, whether intentional or not.

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