I think I might take film geeks down soon. Wendy has lost all interest in blogging, and assures me that she'll likely never blog again, at least not at film geeks. I haven't had the drive to write reviews for film geeks in a long time. The heavy metal blog I started a while back is languishing, too. I've learned about myself that I will occasionally get the urge to start new blog x, convinced that it will be a fun hobby, and then I lose interest as soon as I've set it up.

Wendy and I saw two good movies over the last several days. Right now we don't have any of our kids, so we've had the chance to see some movies we'd otherwise not get to see.

1408 turned out to be a pretty good, somewhat scary horror film. Have you noticed, by the way, that the best horror movies of the last several years have been PG-13 films? The R rated horror films are all gore and gratuitous nonsense. The horror films that actually involve good acting and interesting stories end up rated PG-13. 1408 is a good example of that trend, like The Exorcism Of Emily Rose and Signs and The Sixth Sense. John Cusack pulled of a compelling performance, which was pretty important in a film that amounted to a one-man show about regret and redemption. I'd give 1408 three out of five stars. It's nice to see that there are still people in Hollywood who realize the difference between genuinely frightening stories and pointless gorefests.

The movie I have to enthusiastically recommend, though, is Knocked Up. Oh, it's not for everyone. There is a fair amount of raunchy humor, the movie earns it's R rating. This is the new film from the folks who made The 40 Year Old Virgin. Knocked Up kept us laughing for the whole duration of the film, and the story was really enjoyable. The best thing about the movie is that the characters were all likable people who were celebrated in the film for doing the right thing. They weren't perfect people, and some of them had to make major changes over the course of the film, but they were believable and likable characters. Without realizing it, I found myself really rooting for them, hoping that the story would treat them well. The story was about a guy and a girl who managed to get themselves pregnant on a one-night stand, and then were faced with the difficulty of doing the right thing over the next nine months.

I really enjoyed the film, and not just because it was funny. The two main characters never considered abortion, and the people in their lives who suggested abortion were portrayed as immature, selfish or just plain mean. Instead of aborting the child for convenience's sake, the new mom and pop decided to try the old fashioned thing; getting together for the kid's sake and trying to make it work. It might seem unbelievable to some people that something like that is even possible, but it really played believably in Knocked Up. It isn't that far fetched, after all; I mean, two people who share the same priorities when it comes to the really important stuff already have a head-start on other couples. I liked both of the main characters a lot, and Seth Rogan, the slacker Albert Brooks of his generation, is emerging as an unlikely but highly likable movie star. As a film that kept me laughing and just generally made me happy all the way through, I have to give Knocked Up five out of five stars.

Labels: Blogs, Entertainment, Personal