Patricia Harrelson

Since Christmas, we have watched a slew of movies which I’m going to list. I challenged myself to write a single sentence about each movie, so here goes.

In reverse chronological order we have seen:

Gran Torino: 78 year old Clint Eastwood’s bad cop Dirty Hairy has evolved into a bad-mouthed, surly old man living in an urban ghetto to good effect–gritty, violent, and bittersweet.

Wall-E: Disney has created a strange yet beguiling love story in the context of a trashed earth and a fat outer space that I enjoyed immensely.

27-Dresses: I’m a sucker for romantic comedies that center around not knowing what you want even when it’s staring you in the face, and I particularly like it when one of the characters is a writer.

Sicko: This movie made me sick with envy as I peered through its window into countries who have managed to provide superb health care for EVERYONE: Canada, England, France, and Cuba.

Leaving Las Vegas: The twisted view of unconditional love offered by this movie has hooked my heart repeatedly for reasons I dare not explore.

Mr. Wrong: This is a terrible movie that we watched completely only because the screenwriter was trying to spoof a bunch of classics and it was fun to try to recognize pieces of those other much more worthy films.

Dr Zhivago: It took all of a long winter afternoon to watch this video, a truly worthy use of our time for they simply don’t make movies as exquisitely as this one anymore.

The Bucket List: Jack Nicholson & Morgan Freeman made it easy to think about what I want to put on the list of things I want to do before I die, and the list I wrote after seeing this movie a second time was not all that different from the first, so I better get busy.

I Am Legend: WHEW; I like Will Smith enough to finally watch this thriller (covering my eyes frequently).

Somersby: Though a bit slow-moving, I enjoyed the twists of this Civil War who-done-it.

Marley & Me: I already said that I’m a sucker for a love story with a writer–albeit in this case it’s a family in love with a dog–so not surprisingly this movie grabbed my heart and made me laugh and cry.

Tea With Mussolini–We got this movie because Cindy loves Cher who is aptly cast in this World War II comedy/drama that turned out to be wonderfully character-acted by several favorites including Judi Dench and Joan Plowright.

7 Pounds: WHEW; Will Smith again so what can I say other than this was the movie we watched with two rows of Dixons, a movie that it hits on some pretty tender topics like car accidents and organ transplant.

We are near the end of our “vacation” time, so will be watching fewer movies though maybe more TV. We’ll see how our 2009 plans to play more pan out.